Texas Official Cites Poor Coordination in Flood Response

The state’s director of emergency management told lawmakers on Wednesday that better coordination between state and local emergency managers was needed during the July 4 flash floods that killed 136 people statewide.

Nim Kidd, chief of the Texas Division of Emergency Management, was the first expert to testify in front of the special panel of 18 House and Senate members convened to consider the state’s response to the floods. A second hearing is scheduled for July 31 in Kerrville, the epicenter of the Hill Country flooding.

Kidd told lawmakers that emergency management responsibility is spread among hundreds of individual local governmental entities that have little incentive or guidance to work together. “There’s no funding, there’s no carrot, no stick” to get everyone to work together, he said.

READ MORE: 6 ways lawmakers could respond to the Texas floods in their special session

“We have a long way to go on improving our communications,” Kidd said. He also noted TDEM lacked funding to help local governments create corrective action plans after major disasters. “That’s why we keep having those failures of the same thing over and over again,” he said.

Kidd emphasized that less than 12 hours before the Guadalupe River in Kerr County rose dramatically, weather forecasters had “no indication” of how bad things would get or even where exactly the worst rains might fall. At that point, he said, all TDEM could do was begin mobilizing resources in cities across 44 counties, from Kerrville to Waco to Alpine.

“What we saw was a giant swath of Texas – we started calling it a belt – of where something may happen in the 4th of July weekend,” he said.

Lawmakers refrained from laying blame on Kerr County officials but expressed concerns about how locals fulfilled their responsibilities in the early morning of July 4.

Kidd said that TDEM staff are always awake and monitoring alerts from the National Weather Service, but that there is no way to ensure local officials “are awake and seeing the same information,” he said. “There is no system in place today to ensure that county judge X or mayor Y or emergency manager Z is getting the same information that we are getting from the National Weather Service.”

“You do see the problem with that right?” asked state Sen. José Menéndez, a Democrat from San Antonio.

“I do,” Kidd said.

State Sen. Charles Schwertner, a Georgetown Republican, asked if Kidd was able to reach the Kerr County judge in the early morning hours of July 4.  “We can have sirens … but if someone doesn’t turn them on, they’re no good,” Schwertner said. “That communication to the person making the call … needs to happen. There seems to be a disconnect of making sure the person making the call is awake, alert, and doing it.”

Kidd said he didn’t try and that he was instead focused on reaching first responders.

He stressed that the 1975 Texas Disaster Act explicitly gives county judges and mayors – rather than state officials and agency leaders – the authority to direct emergency management.

Other invited witnesses include representatives from state agencies and a handful of river authorities, including the Upper Guadalupe River Authority, which oversees the area where the most deadly flooding occurred.

READ MORE: Texas emergency warning bill, vetoed in 2019, will return in session

After an opening prayer, state Sen. Charles Perry, a Lubbock Republican, said the goal of these hearings is not to point fingers. "Our select committee will not armchair quarterback or attempt to assign blame," he said. "To do so undermines the very goal of the committee's creation."

Later in the hearing, Ann Johnson, a Houston Democrat, pushed back.

“I appreciate the recognition of what was done well, but I think this select committee is formed because 137 people are dead, including a number of eight year old little girls at the camp,” she said. “And while I don't think anybody wants to point fingers, I do think we want the most honest assessment of what went wrong.”

The hearing comes days after the start of a crowded special session that includes redistricting and THC regulation. Gov. Greg Abbott has asked lawmakers to address flood warning systems and emergency communications, relief funding for impacted areas in the Hill Country, and natural disaster preparation and recovery.

Top GOP lawmakers, including Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and state Sen. Paul Bettencourt of Houston, have said they want the state to install physical sirens in flood-prone areas, especially in places that have struggled to pay for new systems.

On Tuesday, Patrick named three flood-related issues as priorities for the special session, including natural disaster preparation, emergency communication, and flood relief funding. The bill language has not yet been filed.

Shortly after the July 4 floods, Patrick also indicated that he and Abbott had specifically discussed allocating state funding for sirens in Kerr County so that they could be in place “by the next summer.” No more specifics on that proposal have emerged so far.

House Speaker Dustin Burrows, a Lubbock Republican, hasn’t made clear exactly how he wants the state to respond.

Last week, acting Comptroller Kelly Hancock told lawmakers $3.1 billion was available for general purpose spending during the special session. It’s unclear how much will be budgeted for flood response and recovery.

Experts say inland flooding is only expected to become more severe with climate change, and have suggested several approaches state lawmakers could take.

Philip Bedient, director of Rice University's SSPEED Center, which focuses on severe storm prediction and evacuation, said the “lowest hanging fruit is to get a unified flood warning type system in place.” He said such a system – which relies on radar-estimated rainfall data – could be implemented in the Guadalupe River basin for less than $1.5 million, including installing sensors, sirens, and trained emergency managers.

Right now, counties can decide whether or not to put the systems in place. Kerr County sought to install a flood warning system, but couldn’t secure the $1 million needed, and its applications for state funds were rejected.

Other emergency managers cautioned lawmakers from relying too much on emergency sirens to alert people in danger.

“Sirens… alone are not going to solve the problem,” said Robert Cullick, a former executive at the Lower Colorado River Authority and retired emergency manager. “This is a people issue, and good training, good communications, and everybody understanding what their job is.”

Part of that effort, Cullick said, is preventing people from building in the floodplain – and moving existing structures out of the most dangerous areas. “We're not going to be able to stop or divert floods, generally speaking,” he said.

Emergency warning systems also need ongoing capital to fund operations and training, said Howard Slobodin, the former general counsel of the Trinity River Authority. “All these capital projects, whether it’s flood warning or flood mitigation infrastructure, they have ongoing costs,” he said. “You can’t just put the money into the investment and then walk away.”

Lawmakers will also determine how much financial relief should flow to communities devastated by the flooding. Kidd said more than 6,000 people had registered for FEMA assistance.

A Houston Chronicle analysis found that most of the homes damaged in Kerr County didn’t carry flood insurance.

As youth camps situated in the floodplain face increased scrutiny after the deaths of dozens of girls, lawmakers are likely to consider measures that would address flood safety requirements for camps. State Rep. Don McLaughlin, a Republican from Uvalde, filed a bill that would require youth camps in floodplains to adhere to minimum building standards.