So many didn’t have to die. Texas must fix the failures the Hill Country floods exposed

A haunting quote from Camp Mystic’s late patriarch, Richard “Dick” Eastland, has resurfaced in news coverage since the devastating July 4 flood along the Guadalupe. 

“The river is beautiful,” Eastland told the Austin American-Statesman in 1990. “But you have to respect it.”

It’s sage advice — and, in a way, it also applies to how political leaders should engage with Texans today.    

It’s fine to marvel at the beauty of Texans’ strength, generosity and resilience amid inexplicable tragedy. In recent weeks, more than 13,000 volunteers have given their time, treasure and perhaps even their own mental wellness to clear debris, work in shelters and join countless law enforcement officers and military personnel in search of missing flood victims.

In a news conference Friday in the hard-hit Kerr County hamlet of Hunt, President Donald Trump noted the “unity and competence” he’d seen on his tour of the area. No doubt, grief and pride have walked side by side in the days since the raging Guadalupe took more than 130 lives, with at least 100 still missing.

But our leaders, from the president to the governor on down to local officials in Kerr County, need to have some respect as well – for Texans’ right to know what happened and what didn’t happen, for the right to understand why hundreds of friends, family members, and fellow Texans are dead, for the right to insist that when the special Legislative session starts in just a few days, lawmakers will ensure that river communities will never again be so vulnerable. 

At Friday’s news conference, Gov. Greg Abbott did vow to consider the myriad ideas being proposed to keep Texans safe, including warning alerts and sirens: “We’re going to work on alerts, we’re going to work on every single solution to make sure things like this don’t happen again, not just in this community but in other river basins across the state,” Abbott said. “We will work to get it right.”

This is exactly what concerned citizens want to hear. But days earlier, the governor dismissed those demanding accountability as “losers” playing the blame game. He used a convoluted football analogy to say that team players don't fault each other for a fumbled play. But, governor, don’t they study the tape on Monday to learn some lessons before the next game?

Likewise, isn't it fair for Texans to look at this tragedy and ask what could have prevented at least some of the deaths? To ask why an area known as "flash flood alley" could be caught so off guard by a flash flood? To ask why the 230-mile Guadalupe River has only four working flood gauges while the dammed-up, 87-mile Blanco River has 14? One answer to that last question is that, after flooding along the Blanco killed 13 in the Wimberley area in 2015, local leaders asked the hard questions and acted to better protect people.  

And yet, when a reporter with CBS Texas asked Trump during the news conference about families who were upset about delayed warnings, the president lashed out: “I don’t know who you are but only a very evil person would ask a question like that," he told her, then told the public officials and first responders in the room, "I think it’s been heroism, the job you’ve all done."

No one denies the heroism, from Coast Guard rescue swimmers who saved hundreds of girls to Dick Eastland, who died after trying to drive three campers to safety. 

But heroism after the fact has nothing to do with decisions made in the hours, or even years, before the raging floods began to swallow cars and cabins and entire families whole. 

Decisions and consequences 

Eastland himself was inconsistent in following his word of caution about the river. While he successfully advocated for a short-lived flood warning system after a devastating 1987 flood, the Associated Press reported that Camp Mystic repeatedly and successfully appealed to FEMA to remove dozens of its buildings from the 100-year flood map. That move loosened oversight and reduced insurance requirements but did nothing to improve the safety of the campers he loved so much. 

Eastland’s actions during the predawn flooding also raise questions. The Washington Post this week quoted a family spokesman saying that Eastland waited more than an hour to begin evacuating young campers from their cabins after he received a severe flood warning at 1:14 a.m. from the National Weather Service citing “life-threatening flash flooding” in Kerr County. 

No one denies the unprecedented nature of this flood. Jeff Lindner, a Harris County Flood Control District meteorologist who has conducted post-storm field surveys across the Gulf Coast for two decades, wrote on Facebook last week that the destruction along more than 70 miles of Guadalupe River "was about the worst I have ever seen. ... it was like the combined forces of hurricane storm surge and a tornado." 

Even officials in “the most dangerous river valley in the United States,” as Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly called it, weren’t expecting the river to rise 26 feet within 45 minutes.

But maybe that's part of the problem. Maybe we should stop being so shocked by the devastation wrought by a river that keeps outdoing herself. A 1999 safety guide issued by the Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority and FEMA called a 1998 flood that killed 12, including several in my hometown of Seguin, "the flood that many thought would never happen." Perhaps our fellow Texans thought the same thing after other major floods in 1936, 1952, 1972, 1973, 1978, 1987, 1991 and 1997. 

Just last fall, Kerr County wrote in a report to federal officials obtained by The New York Times that “it is likely” the county would experience a flood event in 2025 and it could result in “increased damage, injuries, or loss of life.”

So why didn’t officials prepare for that? Why didn’t they come up with a way to better alert people to flooding danger?

Nearly a decade ago, Kerr County Commissioner Tom Moser tried to heed the warning of the deadly flood in the Wimberley area by proposing a centralized flood warning system for Kerr, complete with river gauges and sensors and even sirens to alert people in a hilly region known for spotty cell service and where frequent weather alerts on phones can make people numb to them. But even when Moser scrapped the unpopular sirens, which some feared would blast false alarms across the majestic landscape, commissioners balked at the $1 million price tag, which one called “extravagant.” 

The system never materialized, not even years later when the county received $7 million in COVID relief funds. Two earlier requests for grant funding were denied by the Texas Division of Emergency Management, one in 2017 because the county lacked a natural disaster plan and one in 2018 when the state prioritized areas hit by Hurricane Harvey. Last year, the Upper Guadalupe River Authority declined a modest offer by the state water development board to match 5 percent of the cost of a system – a figure calculated in part based on the area’s average household income, The New York Times reported.  

Asked in a recent interview if he thought the flood warning components could have saved lives, Moser said, “I’m confident they could have.”

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick echoed that on Fox News soon after the July 4 flood: "It's just clear those sirens need to blast," Patrick said. "If the cities can't afford it, we'll step in." That's progress, especially when you consider that the Texas Senate Patrick oversees killed a bill last session that would have created a statewide strategic plan and grant program to help communities invest in emergency communications, alert systems and first responder equipment. 

Another question: Why did the county wait hours to send text alerts through its opt-in CodeRed system? Officials initially claimed they didn’t have any alert system at all but Texas Public Radio learned the CodeRed system had been in place since at least 2009 and that when an Ingram volunteer firefighter requested an alert be sent in the early hours of July 4, a dispatcher said she didn’t have the authority. 

In news conferences, Kerr officials have deflected questions about what they could have done to warn people sooner, urging journalists to “bear with us” as recovery efforts continue and officials tend to the grim task of informing victims’ families when their loved ones are found.

Some on social media have suggested it’s too early or even disrespectful to ask hard questions. 

A sense of urgency 

Nothing is more disrespectful of human life than refusing to do everything we can to preserve it. 

It’s not too early to demand answers and accountability; it’s too late, actually, for those who might have been saved by a well-functioning flood warning system or even a noisy siren that could have alerted sleeping campers of the danger rushing toward them. The nearby town of Comfort had such a system and suffered no casualties although the town also had the benefit of daylight. 

Politicians need the political will to act, especially when they’re weighing whether to spend millions of taxpayer dollars. That means people must still be paying attention when problems and solutions are debated. Sadly, the countdown clock on public interest starts immediately. Within days or weeks, many people move on to the next big headline.    

“If we don’t talk about it now and get the fire underneath everybody, it’s going to get shuffled again,” Raymond Howard, council member in nearby Ingram, told The New York Times. “And I don’t want to see that.”

Nobody does. If Abbott and Patrick are serious about funding warning systems and other flood-prevention, they have their work cut out for them. Texas’ growing backlog of flood mitigation projects totals about $54 billion, the Times reported. That’s slightly more than the $51 billion lawmakers approved in property tax cuts. 

It’s all about priorities. If this tragic loss of life doesn’t spur action, nothing will. Flood mitigation is expensive but even in a conservative state, or in bright red Kerr County, it should be clear by now that the cost of inaction is far greater. 

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What’s on your mind? What are y`ou curious or concerned about? Let me know by responding directly to this email or writing me at Lisa.Falkenberg@HoustonChronicle.com.

        

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