As I said yesterday, I don’t know if Greg Abbott would have called a special session to address the great tragedy happening in the Hill Country if one hadn’t already been on the calendar for other reasons. He didn’t call one following Hurricane Harvey. But here we are, and now we can talk about things the Lege could do to help mitigate the next flash flood in this part of the state.
It was still too early for several lawmakers to say what long-term policy changes and investments should look like. But a few critical improvements were emerging as potential priorities:
‘Old-tech’ sirens in flood-prone areas
The lack of sirens along the Guadalupe River has piqued lawmakers’ interest, with some saying they trust their efficacy more than even some modern systems.
State Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, said Monday he would file a bill “at the earliest opportunity” to assist counties in installing physical sirens, as opposed to newer alerts sent to cell phones, which he said many people may miss at nighttime.
“It’s time to go back to what worked and still does in Tornado Alley, Civil Defense Sirens,” Bettencourt posted.
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick also says he supports buying more sirens, telling Fox & Friends on Monday that he and the governor had spoken and were in agreement about investing state dollars in support for local governments, though some jurisdictions including Kerr County, which was hardest hit by the flooding, have opted against siren systems in the past.
“It’s clear those sirens need to blast,” Patrick said. “If the cities can’t afford it, then we’ll step in, and if the cities don’t want to do it, we’ll step in.”
State Sen. Sarah Eckhardt, a Democrat from Austin and former Travis County Judge, echoed that sentiment.
“I think it is a fairly obvious thing that our advanced warning systems in our rural areas are insufficient, and they don’t have the tax base to build the infrastructure without state assistance,” Eckhardt said.
Better, modern monitoring systems
House Speaker Dustin Burrows praised an op-ed in the Houston Chronicle Tuesday morning that called for more flood gauges and a modern radar-based flood assessment system that could provide officials with more real-time information.
“The Texas House will work with leading experts like @RiceUniversity’s SSPEED Center to identify and help fund solutions like those outlined,” Burrows said of the op-ed, written by Phil Bedient of Rice University’s Severe Storm Prediction, Education, & Evacuation from Disasters Center.
Modern assessment systems installed in Houston in 2020 could benefit other flood-prone areas like the Hill County and San Antonio, Bedient wrote.
Nick Fang, an associate professor at the University of Texas at Arlington, said cost was typically the biggest hurdle for more widespread use of the systems, especially in rural, cash-strapped counties. Fang led a research group contracted by the state in 2021 to study early flood warning systems.
The cost of projects that Fang reviewed varied widely, from $26,000 to $1.5 million. Hearst Newspapers reported Monday that in 2016, Kerr County officials estimated they would need $1 million to implement an early warning system but failed to secure the funding locally or convince the state to assist with the investment, despite at least three separate requests.
One option could be newer, low-cost sensors, Fang said. These are cheaper to build, work using battery or solar power rather than plugging into the electrical grid, and transmit data using existing wireless networks. They also require less personnel to operate.
The Texas Water Development Board is currently contracting with AtkinsRealis, Inc. & WEST Consultants, Inc. to produce a report on best practices for using such systems; that report is due in August. An American Society of Civil Engineers study in 2022 found that the systems are likely to replace older, higher-cost systems when those wear out because of their affordability.
The most advanced early warning systems will work in conjunction with hydrological models that take in rain and stream gauge data and forecast how much water will accumulate within a certain time period, Fang said. But even the most rudimentary siren system is “better than nothing,” he said.
“Given what happened this last weekend, the loss of so many people, and especially those young kids, that’s the future of our country. There should be designated money,” Fang said about the possibility of the state assisting local governments with warning system funding.
[…]
Emergency response council and disaster preparedness plans
Lawmakers may look to revive legislation that failed to pass this spring, during the Legislature’s regular session, as starting points for negotiation.
Several of the bill’s co-sponsors, including state Rep. Drew Darby, R-San Angelo, have called for the Legislature to reconsider the bill or parts of its language.
“I joint authored HB 13 because this is an area of public safety that needs significant and immediate attention,” said state Rep. Joe Moody, D-El Paso, in a statement to KXAN. “The absolute last thing we can afford is to do nothing. We should be exploring all avenues and turning that into concrete policy now.”
The bill passed the House, with only a dozen lawmakers opposed, but later died in the Senate. The Texas Tribune reported Monday that state Rep. Wes Virdell, a Republican who represents Kerr County, was reconsidering his previous opposition to the legislation.
A spokesperson for Patrick said HB 13 would only have covered the cost of running the council and did not appropriate funds to purchase warning systems. He also noted the Legislature made “unprecedented” investments this year in aircraft and regional response facilities, among other emergency resources.
State Rep. Rafael Anchía, D-Dallas, who also filed a disaster preparedness bill this session, said lawmakers needed to take a more proactive approach. Though shoring up infrastructure now is necessary, the Legislature has limited ability on its own to predict and recommend systems that could prevent future disasters.
Anchía’s House Bill 2618, which would have required state agencies including TDEM to create severe weather adaptation plans, passed the House on a bipartisan vote but failed in the Senate. He said he is prepared to refile the bill, if it fits the parameters of Abbott’s call.
“We as a Legislature seem to always be reactive,” Anchía said. “It’s the Boy Scouts’ motto: be prepared. We need to make sure the state government is in the same position.”
Slate’s Henry Grabar touched on some of this as well. The risks are known, but the solutions are as well. I’ll be happy for the Lege to adopt these ideas, and not just for Kerr County but for everyplace in the state that is at risk of flash floods. Throw in HB13 to address other matters like wildfires and everything else as well. But let’s not praise ourselves too vigorously if that happens, and let’s definitely not let Greg Abbott and Dan Patrick take any bows either. All of these risks have been known for years, all of these solutions have been available for years, and all this time Abbott and Patrick and the Republicans in the Lege have sat on their thumbs. (That’s a gift link, be sure to read it.) Better late than never, sure, but we’re very late and much more than a dollar short at this point.
One thing not specified above is what if anything to do about the camps themselves.
Camp Mystic, Heart O’ the Hills and several other Kerr County camps hit by last weekend’s deadly floods sit partially in areas deemed “extremely hazardous” by officials, according to a Houston Chronicle analysis.
The catastrophic flooding that tore through a number of historic summer camps along the Guadalupe River has led to the confirmed deaths of more than two dozen children. Though the disaster sent shockwaves across the nation, experts said it merely laid bare risks that have been known for years.
A Chronicle review of property records and federal flood maps found that many of these camps sit amid a patchwork of special hazard flood areas. Some even have parts of their grounds in a designated floodway – the channel where water flows most forcefully during a flood, posing the greatest danger to anything in its path.
“In Texas, we have been very irresponsible about the way we treat floodways and floodplains,” said Jim Blackburn, a Rice University professor who specializes in environmental law and flooding issues. “We have always treated them as a kind of environmental red tape rather than a true danger area, and I think that has dis-served us across the board.”
Notably, while nearly all these camps touch floodways or floodplains, most of their grounds lie outside federally designated flood zones, which are usually drawn narrowly along the water. Blackburn said this is yet another example of how the Federal Emergency Management Agency flood maps fail to account for changing weather patterns and underestimate the true risks.
“Those maps you’re looking at are outdated,” he said. “We’re seeing storms that are increasingly larger and larger. The predictions need to be updated from a statistical standpoint in ways that we haven’t even begun to do.”
Summer camps having “excellent flood escape plans” was an item on Phil Bedient’s list, and that seems to have gotten Speaker Burrows’ attention, so we’ll see about this. I like the idea that was bandied about in earlier comments here about mandating evacuation drills at all these camps. We were just on a cruise, and one of the first things we did, even before we left the port, was an all-ship evacuation drill, in which we had to go to our designated muster points and see how to find and put on the life jackets. Schools and office buildings do fire drills, make the camps do evacuation drills. Make them have up-to-date evacuation plans. Make them prove they do both of these things on a regular basis. Seems like not too much to ask.
Well, it turns out they do have to do this sort of thing.
It is far too early to assign blame — or to declare such uncommon and fast-moving tragedies unavoidable. Local officials are still conducting recovery operations. Nearly a dozen people remain missing. Families have only begun to grieve.
But questions of whether it could have been mitigated are coming. Among other topics, they will almost certainly include an examination of how camp leaders prepared for floods in an area known for them, received and heeded warnings and — if possible under the conditions — followed their own emergency plans.
Social media has multiple accounts of Camp Mystic leaders acting heroically, directing girls to safety as the waters rapidly rose. The beloved longtime owner and director, Dick Eastland, perished in the flood, reportedly trying to save his campers.
But it also remains unclear how and when the camp was alerted, and how much time leaders and campers could have had to implement their evacuation plan and move out of harm’s way.
The National Weather Service’s first flash flood warning was broadcast at 1:14 a.m. Friday morning.
“At 3:11 am was woken up to help evacuate campers from their cabins,” a Camp Mystic program director recently posted on social media. “By 4 am I was on a roof with the water right up to me.”
[…]
Mystic is just one of many youth camps situated along the Guadalupe River, some of which have been in business for nearly a century. The possibility of flash flooding in the area is well-known. A 1987 flood killed 10 campers.
“As with all adventures, Campers will be exposed to certain risks,” Camp Mystic’s liability waiver states. Among others, they include “uncertain terrain, the river and river frontage, heat, cold, rain, floods and lightning.”
Three of nine board members for the Upper Guadalupe River Authority, which promotes flood safety and warnings, are local camp directors. Kerr County meeting transcripts include past discussions among county officials about the informal system camps along the river have deployed to help each other stay aware of water levels.
“If there’s a rise, they’re phoning their competitors or colleagues downriver and letting them know what happened,” a commissioner explained in 2017, as the county was contemplating adding to the system of river monitors. “It’s informal, but it’s been a very good system to let them know over time.”
Youth camps are required to be licensed and inspected annually by the Texas Department of State Health Services. As part of the process, each must have an emergency plan “to be implemented in case of a disaster, serious accident, epidemic, or fatality [and] shall include procedures for emergency shelter and for evacuation of each occupied building and the facility.”
The plans must be posted in every building, the code states. “Campers shall be instructed as to their actions in the event of fire, disaster, or the need to evacuate. These procedures shall be reviewed by the staff with specific assignments made to each staff member and counselor. All camp staff and volunteers shall be made aware of this plan during the staff-training program or volunteer briefing.”
A spokeswoman for the health services department said each camp is responsible for developing its own emergency plan, although all must address a list of basics. State inspectors use a checklist to verify the general criteria are met, she said.
Several parents and camp workers at Guadalupe River youth camps said it is common for the plans to be reviewed at orientation. In case of flooding, campers are told which buildings are on higher ground and the paths to take to get there.
Although some camps along the Guadalupe River also are accredited by the American Camp Association, a process that focuses on a facility’s “health, safety, and risk management practices,” according to the organization, Camp Mystic was not.
This also gets into the notification systems in Kerr County, which I’m comfortable saying fell short. If nothing else, the Lege needs to take a hard look at both of these things, and mandate suitable improvements. If they don’t, we all know what will happen next, and we’ll know who is to blame.
Let me end this on a positive note.
Several Kerrville Independent School District teachers and staff members drove school buses full of hundreds of campers from Camp La Junta and Camp Mystic to reunification sites on July 4.
Catastrophic Guadalupe River floods swept people and structures away early that morning as it rose nearly 30 feet in under an hour. Both camps, located along the river, reported the campers that were accounted for were safe but had no electricity or running water available due to the flooding.
On the evening of July 4, KISD Superintendent Brent Ringo said he received a call from Katie Fineske, one of the owners of Camp La Junta, asking for the district’s help to get campers to safety before the sun went down.
“I look at my own kids, and if my kids were stranded somewhere at a camp, or wherever that may be … I would hope somebody would say ‘Yeah, we’re going to be right there,’” Ringo said. “We were humbled to be asked to help and honored to be asked to help.”
Within ten minutes of the call, Ringo said the district gathered about a dozen people who said they were willing to help.
Ringo said all KISD coaches are required to have a Commercial Driver’s License. One driver who volunteered to help —Aubrey Pruitt— had earned her bus license only a week ago and had never transported students on a bus until that evening.
Ringo said while he didn’t have a Commercial Driver’s License of his own, he used his pickup truck to transport campers.
“When we arrived, and you see kids just in t-shirts and shorts, the clothes they slept in, and no shoes, and hundreds of them, it is very heart wrenching,” Ringo said.
After transporting campers from Camp La Junta, about 300 campers were also transported from Camp Mystic at about 7 p.m. after being brought to the buses by the National Guard, Ringo said. Assistant Superintendent Shelby Balser, Tivy High School Principal Rick Sralla and other KISD coaches and bus drivers were among those who stepped up to get the campers to safety.
Prior to the emergency bus rescues, Ringo said that on July 4, KISD designated campus sites for first responders and state agencies to assist with rescue and recovery efforts. He said the district wanted to make sure first responders had privacy and a place to rest and shower.
“Those are the people coming in to support our city and save lives, so we wanted to make sure we get our first responders taken care of,” Ringo said.
Thank you, Kerrville ISD, Superintendent Ringo, and everyone who pitched in to help.
Do the magas listen to Off the Kuff? I would just as soon wish to win a billion-dollar lottery. I would have as much chance as getting magas, listening, and doing something about it.
The Democrats are lap dogs, as I read, the magas throw some of them a few scraps and they quickly vote with them. Like Whitmire getting a chair for breaking ranks with the Senate Democrats.
“House Speaker Dustin Burrows praised an op-ed in the Houston Chronicle Tuesday morning that called for more flood gauges and a modern radar-based flood assessment system that could provide officials with more real-time information.”
Typically Republican, to talk as if critical resources will be available in the future when they have cut funding and pushed out key personnel responsible for maintaining these old radars.