At Texas flooding hearing, state officials look elsewhere for blame

AUSTIN, Texas – Texas’ emergency management chief on July 23 defended his agency’s actions in the

July 4 floods that ravaged the Texas Hill Country

, suggesting at the first legislative hearing on the disaster that local emergency officials were not adequately trained to respond.

At several points during the hearing on the state’s handling of the catastrophic floods that killed at least 136 people statewide, Mr W. Nim Kidd, the chief of the Texas Division of Emergency Management, directed attention to the role of local emergency managers in disaster response in Texas.

“The responsibility of being in charge rests with local officials,” Mr Kidd testified at the hearing of state Senate and House committees for disaster preparedness. He also pointed to the lack of specificity and urgency in National Weather Service forecasts until shortly before floodwaters began surging early on July 4.

While Mr Kidd did not describe any particular failures by local officials, he stressed the need for “a deliberate conversation about the credentialing of emergency managers at the local level.” At the moment, there are no requirements for credentials.

“We can do better than that,” he said.

The testimony opened a daylong hearing at the state Capitol in Austin, part of a special session called by Governor Greg Abbott to address the flooding, as well as to redraw congressional maps to benefit Republicans in response to pressure from President Donald Trump.

The state is still reeling from the flooding. At the hearing on July 23, the director of the state police Freeman Martin told lawmakers that another person missing in the flood, a woman whom he did not identify, had been found dead. Two people, including a child from Camp Mystic, remain missing in Kerr County, he said.

Texas leaders have sought to avoid any finger-pointing over potential government failures that may have contributed to the flooding’s staggering toll, particularly in Kerr County, where over 100 people died. Mr Abbott has said that those looking for whom to blame were “losers.”

“Our select committee will not armchair-quarterback or attempt to assign blame,” said Senator Charles Perry, the chair of the Senate’s special committee on disaster preparedness.

But local officials in Kerr County have faced questions about their failure to secure funding for a flood warning system in recent years, and the apparent lack of local government action amid increasingly dire weather alerts in the early hours of July 4.

No one from the Kerr County government or the city of Kerrville, the county seat, was invited to testify in Austin on July 23. Residents of the areas hit by the floods were also not permitted to speak. But they will have a chance to testify before lawmakers next week at a legislative hearing in Kerrville.

On July 23, lawmakers directed pointed questions at one local official who did appear late in the day: the general manager of the Upper Guadalupe Water Authority, which covers the river in Kerr County.

“We’ve had a number of funerals for eight-year-old girls from the families that trusted and sent their children to your county,” said Representative Ann Johnson, a Houston Democrat. “You know that river can kill, because it killed children in the ’80s.”

The water authority’s general manager Tara Bushnoe testified that over the years, the authority had accumulated US$3.4 million in reserves for a water supply project. But when the project fell through, in 2022, the board did not use that money for an improved flood warning system, despite a 2016 study finding that it was needed and several unsuccessful attempts to get grants from the state.

“You had the money, but not the will,” said Representative Drew Darby, a West Texas Republican. Senator Paul Bettencourt, a Houston Republican, said the decision was “pathetic.”

Ms Bushnoe said the authority had taken steps to spend down the surplus and lower its tax rate, after a review and direction from a state commission in 2023. The review did not recommend spending the money on flood warning systems. The surplus was first reported by The Houston Chronicle.

Representative Joe Moody, an El Paso Democrat, said the response to the floods could have been better “before, during and after.”

“That’s not a blame game,” he said. “That’s accountability.”

The hearing began with lawmakers watching a 10-minute video clip from a Houston television news meteorologist who called the confluence of weather factors that led to the severe river flooding a “freak event.” The idea, Mr Perry said, was to underscore just how unusual the event was.

“I’m hearing from the old-timers, this is a 500-year event,” Mr Perry said.

Mr Kidd said the forecasts leading up to July 4 predicted significant storms, but were not specific about the areas that might be most affected and required state officials to spread out resources over a large region. He said that the “area of concern” the day before the flooding stretched across 44 counties and that his agency convened a weather call with local governments in which well over 400 people participated.

The lawmakers mostly thanked the state officials who testified for their agencies’ work in responding to the flooding. Several appeared interested in taking action to improve systems of communication between emergency responders, and, after Mr Kidd’s comments, of improving the training and credentialing of local emergency officials.

But there were a few moments of tension.

Senator José Menéndez, a San Antonio Democrat, asked whether more could be done by the state to make sure local officials received important weather warnings.

“We know we can share the information,” Mr Kidd said. “But we really have no way of knowing whether they have received the message.”

“You do see the problem with that?” Mr Menéndez asked.

“I do,” Mr Kidd replied. He added that part of the issue was that local emergency officials, who supply their contact information to the state, sometimes provided only office numbers or generic emails. NYTIMES