Sixteen months have passed since Hurricane Harvey broke through the Texas coast in August 2017, killed more than 80 and moisturizing entire quarters. And when Texas legislators gathered in Austin for their two -year session, it was difficult to ignore the scale of the thunderstorm.
Legislators responded, assessing a long -standing state initiative to assess flood risks and improving the readiness for more frequent and deadly thunderstorms. “If we get planning directly on the front and prevent more damage at the front, then we have less at the back end,” said Charles Perry, a republican senator from Lubbak, who heads the commission that controls environmental problems.
In the following years, hundreds of local officials and volunteers overcame communities across Texas, reflecting vulnerabilities. The result of their work came in 2024 with exit Texas first in history State Flood Plan.
Their conclusions were identified by almost $ 55 billion in the proposed projects and posted 15 key recommendations, including nine law proposals. Several were aimed at assistance in rural settlements, such as Ker’s count, where more than 100 people were killed over the weekend of July. The three are still missing.
But this year legislators have largely ignored these recommendations.
Instead, the legislative session ended on June 2 Reduced real estate taxThe amount, almost equal to the financing, defined by the Texas Council for Water Development, a state agency, which has historically controlled the efforts on water supply and preservation.
Although only seven years have passed since the hurricane Harvey, the legislators preferred the water and the drought crisis over flooding.
Legislators allocated More than 1.6 billion dollars In new income for water infrastructure projects, only some of which are mitigating the consequences of the flood. They also passed a bill, which in November asks voters to decide whether to approve $ 1 billion annually over the next two decades, which will prioritize water priorities and wastewater for flooding projects. At this pace, water supply experts stated that this may take decades before the existing needs of the consequences will be resolved – even without additional floods.
Even if they were approved by legislators this year, many recommendations of the plan would not have been implemented on July 4. But the analysis of the propublica and Texas Tribune legislative proposals, as well as interviews with the legislators and specialists of the flood, found that the legislative body has not repeatedly fulfilled key measures that would help communities prepare for frequent floods.
Such inactivity often gets into rural and economically dangerous communities, because they lack a tax base to finance major flooding projects and often cannot afford to provide the data necessary for state and federal grants, experts on the environment and legislators said.
Over the years, lawmakers have refused to adopt at least three bills that would create siren or alert systems, experts say tools can be especially useful in rural settlements This lacks a reliable internet and cellular service. Report on the 2019 State Commission Settlement needs to prevent floods at more than $ 30 billion. Since then, the legislators have allocated only $ 1.4 billion. And they ignored the key recommendations from the 2024 State Flood Plan, which are designed to assist in the countryside as a Kerer county called “Flash Flaod Alley” due to its geography.
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Ronaldo Bolaños/Texas Tribune
Governor’s spokesman Greg Ebot and Speaker of the House of Representatives, Dostin Berrus, R-Lubbock, did not answer questions about why the plan’s recommendations were noticed, but defended the investment of the legislation in the mitigation of the flood as significant. They pointed to millions spent on other efforts to prevent, including the construction and maintenance of the flood dam, regional flood projects, and increase the disclosure of the floodplain and drainage requirements for border districts. Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick did not answer questions.
This week, the legislature will convene a special session, which Frawle called to address a number of priorities, including flood prevention systems, preparation for natural disasters and financing. Patrick promised that the state would buy Warning sirens for counties in Flash Flood areas. Similar efforts, however, were previously rejected by the legislative body. Along with the storms, Patrick also announced the formation of committees for readiness for disasters and floods and Called this step “Only the beginning of the legislative body, which considers every aspect of this tragic event.” said the storms The house “is ready to strengthen our state from future disasters.”
But Report. Ana-Maria Rodriguez Ramas, a Democrat from Richardson, near Dallas, stated that for decades, state legislators have been deprived of the needs of flood prevention.
“The leadership was there, and we ignored it, and we continued to ignore these recommendations,” said Rodriguez Ramas, who worked in the House of Representatives Committee, which controls the problems of water for three sessions. “Perspective to say that we are trying to do something well, knowing that we don’t do enough.”
One of the recommendations from the 2024 flood plan will cost the state to accept. He urged the county to charge for drainage, including in unorganized areas that could finance local flood projects. About 150 of the 1,450 Texas cities and counties have allocated a drainage fee, the study said in the state assessment.
Kerr, a conservative county of 53,000 people, tried to get support for projects that would raise taxes. Approximately a week after the flood, some Residents protested When commissioners of the county discussed the increase in real estate tax to help cover the cost of restoration efforts.
The inability to enhance such fees is one of the largest obstacles to local authorities, seeking to finance flood consequences, Robert R. Puete, Democrat and a former state, who once headed the State Committee, which is responsible for water problems. The stability of the legislators to such efforts is introduced in fiscal conservatism, said Punrate, who now heads the water system.
“Basically, this is from the philosophy that now has a leadership in Austin, that we are by no means going to raise taxes, and in most circumstances, we are not even going to allow local authorities to have control over how they raise taxes and do not comply with the fees,” he said.
Another recommendations of the flood plan called on legislators to allocate money for technical assistance to help insufficient and rural governments better manage the floods that require many standards to ensure safe development in these dangerous areas. Carrying out this work requires local officials to collect a clear reflection indicating the risk of flooding. Taking this measure can help the counties like KERE with such a data collection, which is recognized as the plan is particularly difficult for rural and economically insufficient communities.
Insufficient information affects Texas’s ability to fully understand flood risks across the country. For example, the Water Council plan includes approximately 600 infrastructure projects in Texas in need of completion. But his report confessed that ancient or missing data meant that another 3100 estimates would be required to find out if additional projects were needed.
In the Guadalupe River region, which includes KER, 65% of the districts lacked the proper reflection of the flood. Cherville, the county, was listed among the areas that have “the greatest known flood risks and the mitigation of the consequences”. However, of 19 flood needs, characteristic of the city and the county, only three were included in the 600 state plan. They included requests for installation of backup generators into critical objects and repair of low water transitions, which are in shallow points on the streets where rainwater can unite to dangerous levels.
At least 16 other priorities, including the pursuit of the county before the early warning of the flood and the potential dam or repair of the drainage system, required the following assessment, state plan reports. County officials Tried to get grants on early warning systems over the yearsto no avail.
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Brenda Bazán for Texas Tribune
Gonzalez Kaunti, rich in agriculture of 20,000 people along the Guadalupe River, is one of the rural settlements that are fighting for financing, said the emergency director Jimmy Harles, who is also the Fire Marshal of the County. The county has a desperate need for a system of sirens and additional sensors to measure the potentially dangerous flood level, but has no resources, staff and experience to apply for a “burden” state grant.
“It is very unpleasant for me to know that there is money and there are people who care, but our state agency has become so bureaucratic that it is simply impossible for us,” Harles said. “The lives of our people are more important than what some bureaucrats want us to do.”
For many years, Texas leaders have focused more on harvesting after disasters than preparing for them, said Jim Blackburn, Professor of the Rice University, who specializes in environmental legislation and flood problems.
“It’s no secret that Guadalupe is prone to floods. It has been known for decades,” Blackburn said. “The state was very careless in preparing us for, frankly, the worst storms of the future we see today because of the climate change, and what is changing is what the risks today are just bigger and will be even greater because our storms are getting worse and worse.”
At the press conference this month, Ebot said the state committees would investigate “ways to resolve this”, although refused to propose specifics. Pressing the reporters about where the fault of the lack of readiness, Abbot replied that “the choice of the word lost.”
This should not have the floods of the hill for a special session engaged in emergency systems and financing needs, said USman Mahmood, a policy analyst at the Bayou city water company, a non -commercial organization of Houston, which advocates for the pre -protection.
“The worst thing has already happened, it is floods and loss of life,” he said. “Now it’s a reaction to it.”
Fog Harris contributed to research.
