Credit: courtesy of Stefan Wray

While Austin and Travis County escaped the worst of this year’s Memorial Day flooding – that nod goes to Wimberley and San Marcos – Travis County was indeed declared a federal disaster area (eligible for disaster loans), and Downtown, especially North Lamar along Shoal Creek, was hit pretty hard. Less noticed was flooding on the Eastside, including sections of Northeast Austin and also Montopolis, where resident Stefan Wray sent along a photo of the wrecked bridge over Country Club Creek, east of the Krieg softball fields. He’s alerted city management about the wreckage, which now blocks pedestrian and bike passage from Montopolis toward Downtown: “More and more people have been using this trail to travel all the way to the Montopolis Bridge,” Wray writes, “to make a long loop around the river and lake.” He’s hoping the city will make repairing the bridge a priority.

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Contributing writer and former news editor Michael King has reported on city and state politics for the Chronicle since 2000. He was educated at Indiana University and Yale, and from 1977 to 1985 taught at UT-Austin. He has been the editor of the Houston Press and The Texas Observer, and has reported and written widely on education, politics, and cultural subjects.