Austin-area flood victims say warnings came late, failed to convey danger

At 3 a.m. Saturday, Miranda and Larry Basey woke up to the sound of their daughter’s screams and the water rising outside their window on the banks of Big Sandy Creek in Travis County.

Miranda was terrified: neither she nor her 17-year-old daughter can swim.

“If we get washed away, just hold onto anything big and hang on,” Larry told them. Miranda put a life jacket around her daughter, who stuffed her blanket inside it for reassurance.

It wasn’t until more than 90 minutes later, after the floodwaters had receded, that they received an emergency email alert urging them to “Seek higher ground.”

With at least 14 people in the Austin area confirmed dead and 12 others missing due to the July 4 holiday floods, the Baseys are among many residents in Travis, Burnet, and Williamson counties who say they weren’t sufficiently warned about the impending danger. Their concerns mirror those raised in Kerr County, where Gov. Greg Abbott confirmed Tuesday that the rapid rise of the Guadalupe River killed at least 94 people and left 161 others missing.

Austin-area residents interviewed by the American-Statesman said even when they received alerts before the flood, the severity of the threat wasn’t clear.

Travis County officials on Tuesday acknowledged the confusion and vowed to study how to better inform residents of future disasters.

Travis County Chief Emergency Management Coordinator Eric Carter said the county plans to do a thorough analysis after it addresses the community’s immediate rescue and recovery needs.

"We're still in the response phase," Carter told Travis County Commissioners at a regularly scheduled meeting Tuesday. "Down range, as things calm down, (we will gather) the departments with some key questions. Given the size of this, we may come to court and ask for permission to hire out some folks to help us do that work."

Several residents of hard-hit trailer parks along FM 1431 in Burnet County and other areas said the only advance notifications they received were from the National Weather Service. Because they receive flash flood warnings so regularly, they didn’t understand how severe the flooding could be.

‘Mother Nature is kind of hard to handle sometimes’

Residents from Windy Valley Road in western Travis County didn’t realize the alerts they were receiving on their phones were so critical until many of them started calling one another. Some residents got automatic calls from warning systems, as well.

The flood alerts sounded just like AMBER alerts, which notify people about abducted children, said Irene Maynard, who has lived in the area for decades. It wasn’t until her neighbor called her that she saw the water creeping up her driveway.

Maybe if the alert had come with a different sound, she would have realized the danger sooner, she said.

The weather service has also come under scrutiny after the New York Times revealed staffing shortages may have hindered the federal agency’s collaboration with local governments, which could have taken proactive steps to warn residents. Some have also criticized state officials, who repeatedly denied requests from Kerr County for around $1 million to establish a siren-based flood warning system, Hearst Newspapers reported.

The Baseys were signed up for WARN Central Texas, an optional, free service that sends out severe weather advisories and other warnings from local authorities in 10 counties surrounding the Texas capital.

Weather service alerts often come to residents’ phones automatically through a nationwide Wireless Emergency Alerts system that sends emergency notifications using a special tone and vibration, repeated twice. The system notifies people, based on their location, of extreme weather, local emergencies, AMBER alerts, presidential alerts during national emergencies and other similar notifications.

Warn Central Texas covers about 75% cell phones in the 10-county area, said Martin Ritchey, director of homeland security for the Capital Area Council of Governments, which runs the warning system. Warn Central Texas gathers phone numbers from sign ups and from area lists.

The systems don’t typically send out alerts for less severe watches, only severe warnings, so people should heed the notices, Ritchey said.

“If there's a warning, you've got to take action,” Ritchey said.

People who aren’t on the Warn system may also receive messages at disparate times because the national system uses less accurate locating systems, and the timing of messaging can vary depending on cell phone carrier, he said.

“One person's phone goes off and then another person's phone goes off and one person's phone might not go off at all,” Ritchey said.

In the eastern Burnet County city of Marble Falls, 63-year-old Rona Galloway, who is disabled, was incredulous as she described the lack of warning by phone or in person. She is sure she would have died if her stepson, who lives in the trailer next to hers, hadn’t seen her and pulled her out of the water.

Their cars are unusable now, and their home – which is uninsured – flooded.

“If we got a call at 5 am, we could have gotten our cars out,” she said. Instead, she woke up to chest-level water outside of her mobile home at 6 a.m. Saturday.

Another resident of the Cedar Stays RV Park, 62-year-old Curtis Beal, described waking up around 5:15 a.m. and realizing there was a raging river just inches below his top step.

“I had already heard my next-door neighbor hollering, ‘Curtis, Curtis,’ he said. “If it ain't been for that, I probably would have still been inside, sleeping.”

He tried and failed twice to stand in the water before managing to float to a fence on the perimeter of the park, where his landlord, Eugene Bible, was waiting with his truck. The water had ripped off a wound vacuum from Beal’s recent surgery and carried away his phone.

At least one resident of the trailer park died, according to the Burnet County sheriff’s office. Another person was found Monday at Hamilton Creek, which borders the park, but it’s unclear where they resided. At least 62 people were rescued in the county, officials said Monday.

Burnet County Sheriff Calvin Boyd told reporters that he didn't believe the loss of life was preventable.

"I don't see how we could have prevented it," he said in a news conference Monday. "I don't see how we could put any blame on anything. Mother Nature is kind of hard to handle sometimes."

State officials: ‘We must act now’

In the wake of the staggering losses, Texas lawmakers including House Speaker Dustin Burrows and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick have pledged to fortify flood prevention plans and devote more state funds to emergency warning systems.

State Rep. Drew Darby of San Angelo, who represents part of Kerr County, also urged Abbott in a letter to add emergency disaster preparedness and relief to the agenda for a July 21 special session.

“While we cannot change the past, we must act now to better prepare our communities for future natural disasters and ensure our neighbors have the resources to rebuild,” Darby wrote in a social media post Tuesday.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, House Speaker Dustin Burrows of Lubbock and state Rep. Wes Virdell, who represents Kerr County, vowed to seek legislative solutions during the July 21 special session.

"The Texas House stands willing and able to listen to the community," Burrows said.

Disaster relief and preparedness will be at the top of the agenda when lawmakers return to the Capitol, Abbott declared Tuesday.

Rebuilding concerns

Travis County commissioners voted Tuesday to waive permit fees for people seeking to rebuild their flood-ravaged homes but cannot afford to pay.

Travis County Floodplain Administrator Shawn Snyder told commissioners that residents will have to follow current building regulations and that homes are allowed to be rebuilt in the floodplain unless they sustained “substantial damage,” as defined by Federal Emergency Management Agency regulations. Homes built in the floodplain have to be elevated 2 feet above precipitation estimates for the area, he said.

Some commissioners raised concerns about residents putting themselves in harm's way again.

“People need to understand the threat to their lives if they build in a floodplain area,” Commissioner Brigid Shea said at the meeting.