Speaker 1: Today's episode of the Tribe Cast is sponsored by the
Texas Tribune Speakers Bureau. Welcome to the Trib Cast. I'm
Eleanor Klibanoff, joined by co host and editor in chief
Matthew Watkins. Our other co host, James Bargon, is off today. Matthew,
how are you?
Speaker 2: I'm doing great? How about yourself?
Speaker 1: Pretty good? Pretty good?
Speaker 2: Just the two of us, indeed lonely up here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we've got some guests on zoom that we're going
to turn too shortly. But before we get into that, Matthew,
I did want to talk to you about what's going
on over at Texas A and M. You're a proud alum.
I understand that is true.
Speaker 2: Yet not hiding. I'm very I may have brought it
up once.
Speaker 1: Or twice, may have worn the ring occasionally, but you know,
as the Texas Tribune has sort of exclusively reported this week,
the Board of Regents is down to five candidates for chancellor.
We're hearing down to Texas Controller Glenn Hagar, US Rep.
Michael McCall, Texas A and M Foundation President Tyson Vocal.
Is that right right? University of Alabama President Stuart Bell,
and State Rep. Trent Ashby. Are you offended that you're
not on the list?
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, the chancellor does make a pretty
good salary. I will say that it is a pretty
hard job, though, you know, I think when you talk
about like sort of differing constituencies, higher ed administrator right
now in Texas is a pretty challenging one. You've got
a very conservative legislator and governor who's appointing the board
of Regents. Many of those legislators and regents seem uniquely
interested right now in the you know, social media postings
and emails and various other things of a very large
group of faculty members. It seems like if you're in
this job, you're probably going to have to be called
on to explain, you know, some of those things in
a way that you're probably not going to find very fun.
You then also have a you know, young constituency, a
faculty that maybe doesn't align as much politically with the
rest of the legislature, and it creates just you know,
it might be impossible to keep all those happy. So
you're you're earning all those all those dollars in that jump.
Speaker 1: You're also responsible for a bunch of eighteen to twenty
two year olds, which is a nightmare.
Speaker 2: Indeed, indeed and perhaps most challenging. You are, you know,
at the very top of the food chain as things
go down toward the football team, right and as you
are an aggy Yeah, you're probably grumpy about all the
football and all the the the you know, missed opportunities there,
the losses to certain other teams and everything like that.
That's why I have my eye on this Alabama University
of Alabama president Stuart Bell. I wonder if he goes
into the board of Regions and says, look, I know I.
Speaker 1: Know how to win a couple of them. Yeah. I
grew up in a a role tide family, so I
am you know, gonna be honest, I don't know the
Texas A and M that we want that, you know,
people from Alabama want Texas A and M coming and
taking their president.
Speaker 2: But uh, well, you know you have to let people.
Speaker 1: Hasn't been the best season.
Speaker 2: That can't be you. You've found yourself in Texas, you can't.
Speaker 1: You know, That's true. Me and Stuart Bell both finding
ourselves in Texas. Perhaps, Yeah, well we'll be watching that.
Our crack higher education team is like, you know, very
well sourced on that front.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, seriously though, I mean, I think it's really
interesting to watch because you've got a few, like pretty
prominent political positions on this list, right, I mean, if
if if Hagger is the choice, then you have a
statewide elected office up for grabs, there will probably be
some jockeying there. Of course, Michael McCall, a fairly prominent
member of Congress, would also be a pretty notable change.
And then you know trin Ashby is well, so there's
there's possible domino effects here that could be really interesting
to watch.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it really speaks to like how important this is
not a figurehead position, and John Sharp, who held the
position before, certainly I think contributed to making it into
the political powerhouse role that it is.
Speaker 2: Indeed.
Speaker 1: All right, so we'll keep Matthew at the head of
the Texas Tribune, We'll keep one of these guys at
the head of Texas A.
Speaker 2: And m I'm still available, willing to watch it call.
Speaker 1: You know, I think everyone is in the role they
should be. But you know, that is not what we
are here to talk about this week. We are gonna
this week, you know, usually we're sort of looking ahead
to what the legislature is going to do this session,
which we are going to talk about. But to start,
we're actually going to look back on where the states
stood about a year ago. Here in Texas, the largest
wildfire in state history ripped through the Panhandle. More than
a million acres burned, at least two people and ten
thousand cattle died. The financial losses totaled more than one
billion dollars. We're gonna talk about things stand in the
Panhandle now a year later, what ranchers and residents hope
the legislature might do this session, and how Texas can
better prepare for wildfires more generally. We're joined by Jamie
Lozano Carver, the Tribune's high planes reporter who's based in Lubbock. Hi, Jamie, Hi,
eleanor how is in Lubbock these days?
Speaker 3: It's actually getting warmer this week, so it's been pretty nice.
Speaker 1: Great. We're also joined by doctor Carle Purdham from the
University of Houston, who's the lead investigator on a research
project looking at the Panhandle wildfires and how communities in
Texas are managing wildfire risk. Welcome doctor Purdam.
Speaker 4: Thank you. It's great to be here.
Speaker 1: Thank you both for joining us on this really important topic. Jamie,
you covered these fires a year ago. Just tell us
about that experience, like what it was like for you
going up there and seeing that.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, it was it was a very hard experience.
It was very sad because you know, I went up
there within I think it was the first day that
the fires had started, and so one of the first
stops that I made was at the dairy queen and fridge,
and that's where a lot of the firefighters were taking
a break, and you could kind of see how exhausted
they looked. A lot of them looked checked out at
that point after what they had been dealing with. And
then even just driving around, you could already see the
effects taking place. There was smoke all over the region.
The ground was black. Unfortunately, like you mentioned, there was
a lot of dead cattle that was just out in
the open that people could just see. And of course,
you know, we saw a lot of a lot of
people coming through to help too. We saw a lot
of trucks going through and carrying bales of hay for
the ranchers that needed it. And you know, I think
that what it's probably stuck with me. The most was
just kind of seeing the makeshift shelters that were put
up around all the cities that were affected, where they
just had people from the Panhandle Foal who were either
helping or who were scared and trying to escape what
was going on. So, yeah, it was just it was
very it was hard, you know, just.
Speaker 2: To put in context. I'm I'm looking this up on
my phone as we're talking. The Los Angeles area wildfires.
You know, obviously terrible tragedy, a much denser area. Fifty
seven thousand, six hundred and sixty five acres burned in
that fire. The Panhandle fire burned over one million acres,
you know, obviously different locations there, a lot of different properties,
but still in the scale, the scale of the fire
was pretty unbelievable in terms of how widespread it was
across this area of the state.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, Also, Jamie, you are just to let people behind
the curtain a little bit, and you cited one of
the number one reporting techniques in the world, which is
go to the dairy queen. You can usually it's usually
a good first stop. Jamie, Like a year later, what
do we know about how these fires started? Sort of
how they unfolded and looking back, like, you know, what's
the sort of total count on the impact for ranchers
and residents of that area.
Speaker 3: So you know that I should really say that week,
while everything was starting and really spreading around the region,
there were five fires that were just going through that
were scattered, and I would say within that first twenty
four hours had already burned a lot of the acres
that we were talking about. The House committee that investigated
the fires last year, they found that the fires were
actually started by failed power lines. You know, in the
case of the Smokehouse Creek fire, which, like you said before,
it became the biggest fire in state history, the ignition
was from a decayed power line that had the decayed
power poll that broke and fell into dry grass. So
it was just, you know, it was it was a
ignition that was just waiting to happen, essentially, And we
also know that they the fire spread and incredibly fast
that day because of the high winds, So we just
kind of know how that played out. But as far
as the impact goes, I think the financial loss has
been one of the hardest aspects for the residents in
the Panhandle to come back from ranchers in particular, have
had to worry about, you know, equipment, like getting their
fences and gates fixed just so they can keep their
cattle in their pastures. And that's a lot, even if
you don't lose a majority of your livestock. And I think,
you know, aside from financial I think the biggest toll
would be the mental impact that this has had for
people up there. I was visiting Canadian a few weeks ago,
and there are people there who get scared whenever they
hear the emergency sirens go off. You know, It's a
year later and they're still very anxious about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, I mean that sort of we talk about
sort of like climate change and the almost like PTSD
effects of living through a natural disaster, whether it's you know,
a fire, a flood, anything like that. Doctor Purdam, your
work looks a little bit sort of what happens after
the fire recedes and the recovery begins. Tell us a
little bit about the research you're doing in the Panhandle
and the challenges these communities are going to face as
they rebuild.
Speaker 3: Sure, so I'm involved in two projects.
Speaker 4: What I'm leading is looking at the Panhandle and a
lot of the challenges that face emergency management, but also
a lot of the healthcare infrastructure and just being in
a rural area, how they how the disaster impacted their
decision making. You know, we invest a lot in plans
and you know, putting together you know, scenarios of what
would you do if a wildfire happened, and this was
you know, wildfires are very different from say a hazard
like a hurricane, because it's very difficult to predict, it's
very difficult to keep track of where the impact is growing.
The situation just changes so quickly. So looking at you know,
this disaster and how how emergency management, how local communities
and leaders, how they responded, and what you know, how
the unique, how the uniqueness of the massive scale of
the wildfire, how that impacted their decision making, what would
they take into the next wildfire? And then you know,
just broadly, Uh, I'm part of another project, uh working
with folks at Texas A and M, the Hazard Reduction
Recovery Center, the USA Center for Oral Preparedness, and we're
broadly looking at Texas and other goal states on you know,
how are communities responding to increasing wildfire risk, especially in
rural areas, and so we see a lot of the
same you know, challenges, and that folks are dealing with
increasing risk and increasing vulnerability. We know, the folks in
the Panhandle know that this won't be the last wildfire
in that area, and knowing that you are recovering and
you're trying to you know, rebuild, and but also having
to think, you know what, you know, how are we rebuilding?
How are we you know, reviewing our plans and reviewing
our practices to be prepared for what is coming next.
So they're on that front line of knowing that the
risk is there and trying to you know, recover, but
also be prepared for, you know, the next wildfire disaster.
Speaker 2: Doctor Brintham. You know, I feel like when we talk
about what led to an incident like this, it's often
the same thing, right, you know, you had maybe a
wet period, you know, in the time leading up to it,
leading to lots of growth, then a dry period that
follows that, which leads to a lot of sort of
you know, for lack of a better term, sort of
kindling for a fire. Then you get a very dry
period with high winds and some kind of inciting incident,
right like a power line going down, you know, someone
throwing a cigarette out the window or anything like that.
I mean, a lot of those things are very hard
to control. I'm curious as you look back at this fire,
whether this is an incident of just conditions were right
for this and there's not much you could do, or
were there things that went wrong either in the preparation
or the response to the fire that made this worse
than it might have otherwise could have been.
Speaker 4: Well, I think you know, when we talk about disasters,
most disaster scholars we don't even really refer to them
as natural. We refer to them as disasters because the
term natural disaster implies that there's nothing you could do
about it, and that there's something that's coming from the outside.
And that's how we've responded to disasters before. But we
know with risk, there are a lot of things we
can do to mitigate risk. And you know, I know
that the the areas that we are seeing that are
impacted in especially rural communities, are you know, on the
front lines. They are leading response efforts, and they're from
our research and from a lot of that involves going
into communities in the Panhandle across Texas Louisiana. We know
that especially local fire departments, they're on the front lines
of responding to these you know kinds of crisis and
not just in terms of you know, we think of
firefighters as when the fire is there, that they're going
out and responding to them. But with you know, risk
and the increasing risk is in so many of these communities,
they know that it's there, they're seeing it, and they
are working to you know, they have a new you know,
you know task that's been put on them. Another another
burden in addition to just responding to risk, but in
communicating and trying to advocate to individuals in the communities
to local governments that where the risk is. In communities
across Texas, you know, there's a lot of different challenges,
especially with you have a lot of people moving in
from out of state or from other communities into more
rural areas and there's increasing development in the wild and
urban interface and that has created a lot of challenges
especially in how just changes in land management. So in
conversations with and with leaders and fire departments and emergency management,
local government, you know, that's causing a lot of risk
to be developed. So it's people who you know, they
may come in and be you know, a part of
the community that maybe was before unmanaged wild land and
now it's a development with say like ten acre lots
in them, and each lot now has a fence line,
and where before maybe that the land and the fuel there,
the assets and things we're being managed and now it's
all that kind of fuel is building up, and maybe
that person you know in that community don't realize that
what they're doing is you know, creating more risk that's
going to be difficult for the fire department to manage,
and then also creating a lot more challenges in terms
of responding to fires, So creating more fence lines and
more private property that folks are going to have to navigate.
So there's a lot of different intersecting challenges and I
can say from the most important thing that we've learned
is really listening more to the folks who are on
the front lines, who aren't just yes, they're responding to
the disaster, but they're seeing the risk build up every
day and are are working to try to communicate that.
But they need to be empowered. And that's what part
of our project is is taking down the lessons that
they've learned, and trying to communicate them so that they
can be you know, empowered and listen to with with
the increasing risks they're seeing in their communities.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, I mean, certainly that development I think we're
seeing everywhere. We're gonna talk a little bit about, you know,
how this is not just a Panhandle issue, but Jamie
tell us a little bit. I mean, I know, after
the wildfires, there was a lot of talk about, you know,
the legislature is going to come back, there's things we
need them to do to help us both you know,
respond better in the future, but also sort of rebuild
these communities. What do people in the Panhandle want this
session and what sort of are we seeing momentum on.
Speaker 3: Well, really, I think people in the Panhandle just want
this to be addressed in some way, you know. In particular,
I was hearing that they want, you know, if there
was some way like to do kind of like a
fire task force. There's one proposal in the legislature right
now where it would be creating a database firefighting equipment
that's readily available in the state, and they love that proposal.
So really, you know, we're talking about an area that
has historically felt ignored by Austin and by the lawmakers there,
and I think that that's what they're aiming for. They
want to see this get addressed on a much bigger
level than how they typically address it at home. But
then on top of that, I do think that there's momentum.
I think that you know, there is probably people who
may have forgotten about what happened, or you know, who
think things are fine now. But if that's the case,
you know, there are lawmakers who represent the Panhandle that
are not letting that happen. You know. Like I said earlier,
it's it's Senator Kevin Sparks who filed the bill about
creating the firefighting Equipment Database. He and Representative King also
filed joint bills that would fund rural Volunteer fire Department.
But I think the one that people in the Panhandle
are most excited about is another bill that was filed
by King, who you know, of course, he was born
and raised in Canadian so he has a really good
idea of what they're dealing with and what they need.
And his bill would essentially give that authority to address
faulty electrical lines to both the public utility Commission and
the Railroad Commission. And so, for those who may not remember,
this was a big point of contention during the investigative
hearings last year because neither authority felt that it was
their jurisdiction and it was being called, you know, essentially
a no man's land, and so that made it very
difficult to determine which agencies should be overseeing that maintenance.
And that is probably, I would say, the most pressing concern,
especially for ranchers out there, who you know, aside from
large wildfires just about every year, they also deal with
smaller fires that still affect them on a daily basis.
Speaker 1: Matthew, a thing we've talked about seemingly endlessly in the
early episodes of this podcast, the Speaker's Race, it comes
full circle. We have, you know, a speaker from from
the Panhandle representing do we consider lub Oh my god,
am I going to get chased out of town? Write
a story that was like, this is the first Panhandle speaker,
Oh God.
Speaker 3: Close to the Panhandle. So technically technically Lubbock is the Panhandle.
Speaker 1: Kelly On.
Speaker 3: Yeah, if you ask anybody in Lubbock, they will not
say we're the Panhandle. We are the South Plains or
we're West Texas.
Speaker 1: Okay, but I believe what I did here was technically
I am correct.
Speaker 2: I would like to have.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sorry, I played by the rules. You know, We've
got a lot more to talk about. I do want
to take a quick break, and I encourage people stick
around because we at the end of this episode, we'll
have an update on one of the feel good stories
coming out of the wildfires. We got a little update
to offer you guys on that story, So do stick around.
Let's take a quick break and thank our sponsors, the
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Speaker 2: I kind of interrupted you. Was there actually a question
you were wanting to ask there about the speaker?
Speaker 1: We actually did get distracted? Is that kind of like, well, no,
I don't it doesn't apply anymore.
Speaker 2: I ruined it.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well no, Also, the question was like, do you
think the fact that we have a speaker who is
from near the Panhandle might put more attention on Panhandle issues,
a region that, as Jamie said, often feels sort of ignored.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think, Jamie, I'm interested in hearing your
thoughts on this, but I think it's I think the
people up there found that very meaningful. I mean, you know,
Caroline Fairly, who's from Amarillo, which is the Panhandle, you know,
really actually cited that as one of the reasons she
was she was getting on Burrow's side, and I think
there were a lot of people kind of in that
region feeling like someone who understands this very unique part
of the state is meaningful for questions like this, not
just around you know, wildfire mitigation or response, but also
healthcare and education and a lot of the other things
that are you know, of course coming up this legislative
session as well.
Speaker 1: It's good that Speaker Burrows can understand the issues of
the Panhandled despite not being from the Panhandle or representing it.
We admire with that about him. Okay, doctor Purdam to actually, uh,
this is a nice segue because wildfires are not a
problem exclusive to the Panhandle, though you know, obviously it's
an issue that ranchers in the Panhandle deal with a lot.
You know, we as Matthew said, we saw these wildfires
in Los Angeles, we see wildfires in cities as well.
What like wildfire threats do other states parts of the
state face. Is this a threat for people in cities
as if not as much in the Panhandle, you know
to some extent.
Speaker 4: Well, I would say that wildfire risk, you know, it's
increasing everywhere. They might have a low risk, but whatever
that lower risk is is increasing. Many communities think, you know,
this couldn't possibly happen here. I think that, you know,
many individuals think that with many different types of disasters,
and they might not actually know what their risk is.
And you know, there are you know, other states or
places where wildfires are. They are you know, more understood
to be part of the landscape. And in Texas that's
definitely you know, accepted and understood in many places. But
there are rising risks and and folks just may not
know what what their risk is or how that risk
is increasing. So communities are I know in Texas there
have been some really strong efforts to support communities to
become it's called fire wise communities, uh too. For I
know there's a significant investment and trying to have communities
and counties developed plans their wildfire wildfire I can't remember
the exact name of the plan, but developed wildfire specific
plans and so evaluating what is the wildfire risk in
the community and what would be you know, ways to
mitigate that risk, and you know, identifying areas of vulnerability.
So there's you know, growing understanding and that you know,
those are things that need to be addressed. The challenge
again is, you know, a lot of these planning efforts, Uh,
they cost time, they cost honey, they require to be
really effective engagement with the public, and you know that's
you know, not a simple task. So uh, you know,
the Texas A and M for Services a lot of
support for those efforts. But I think it's it's a growing,
a growing issue. That's something we've talked with part of
our project looking at Gulf States is people, you know,
accept and understand that hurricanes are flooding are part of
the risk landscape, but they may not understand, you know,
that wildfires are part of that that landscape. And you know,
we've talked about the massive scale of the Panhandle wildfire.
But a fire doesn't need to be you know, on
that massive scale to really cause damage. You know, a
fire of say one hundred two hundred acres wherever it
is can still destroy many homes structures in communities. So
you know, folks may think that would never happen here,
but you know that's always something that you know could
be a possibility. There's it's it's understanding what their risk
is and what they can do to mitigate it. And
that's where I would say again, a thing that we're
what we're learning from working with emergency managers, fire departments, folks,
even you know, in local government, is that there is
a there's a you know, gap between what they know
and see and understand as the risk environment and what
the community understands and sees. And you know, having that
knowledge is important for making plans for being prepared. That's
one of the difficult things about wildfires is there's not
that kind of lead up time to say evacuate that
you get with a storm that is well monitored, and
the situation just becomes it changes so much more quickly.
It's a it's a in many ways, it's just a
more difficult kind of disaster to prepare for. So yeah,
there's there's definitely a gap in what the public knows
or thinks about, you know, what their risk is. And
so you know, we're working to try to, you know,
identify ways that communities can improve in communicating that and
communicating that risk and then identifying you know, how they
can you know, reduce the risk in our communities as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was you know, there's some reporting in the
aftermath of the LA fires about how Austin at least
one group ranked Austin as the sort of highest you know,
mid to large sized city in the country in terms
of that that's outside of southern California in terms of
wildfire risk, right, And you know, a lot of us
remember the fires in Bass Drop from you know, more
than ten years ago, which we're very scary and kind
of cree their way, and you know, if you drive
through Bastrop today, it's still you still see the effects
and impact of that.
Speaker 1: And certainly, like as you were saying, doctor Purdam, a
lot more development, a lot more you know, like it's
these are areas that have explored are they're exploding every year,
So potentially have you know, grown a lot since they
updated their wildfire plan or at least since residents sort
of consider their wildfire risk.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think that's a good way to you know, you know,
talk about this is like this is obviously there's people,
as you said, doctor Purham, for whom this is sort
of a way of life and they are prepared for
this and thinking about this a lot. And then there's
people who, like in Los Angeles, I think we're very
caught off guard.
Speaker 2: I'm curious, doctor Purdham, what you think about the home
insurance question about this. You know, after the fires in
southern California, you know, there was all this conversation about
insurers that had pulled out or what we're pulling out
of California. You know, Texas, as you mentioned, has a
lot of different threats, whether it's you know, tornadoes, floods, hurricanes, fires,
you know, earthquakes maybe less so we have them, but
they're not so big. But let's not roll it out. Yeah,
I mean, how much do we need to be worried?
How much do homeowners in this state need to be
worried about the insurability of their properties? And you know,
from a long term basis down here is all these
kind of risks seem to grow or at least we
grow more aware of them.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, I mean I would definitely be concerned, just
because as we're saying with you know, the same kind
of trend with hurricanes and flooding in places along the
Gulf coast. It's not my particular area of expertise, but
I would say it's definitely something that we need to
be watching and being prepared for as risk continues to grow.
I mean, we know that, like we said, there are
some communities that are prepared for this, but they're prepared
for maybe even a previous climate and a previous level
of risk, and that risk is increasing. So even our
current you know, communities that have plans that are you know,
maybe have been adequate in the past, are increasingly less
adequate there they are, you know, have to be updated
for future scenarios that we have perhaps even yet to imagine,
you know, that kind of risk. So I would absolutely
be concerned as we you know, as we continue in
the future down this line of increasing risk, especially from climate.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I would say, I'd definitely be concerned in watching,
especially watching you know what's happening with other hats. It
can absolutely happen here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, certainly, I mean, I feel like between, like you know,
we've had so many like once in a lifetime things happen,
or worst or you know, worst case scenario things happened
in Texas and the country and the world in recent years.
So certainly, Jamie, I know when you were reporting at
the time, you know, a year ago, there was a
lot of talk from ranchers about, you know, can we
keep going, can we rebuild? Do we have a future
in ranching? Do we have a future in this area
You've been up in Canadian recently, I mean, what sort
of what are you hearing now? Are people sticking it out?
Did we see an exodus of ranchers and farmers?
Speaker 3: Well, there are a lot of ranchers who are trying
to get back to where they were before. But unfortunately
it is a mix like what you were saying. You know,
for example, Craig Cowden, he's a rancher up there that
I've talked with a lot since the fires happened, and
he didn't lose any cattle in the right so he
doesn't know how, but he didn't, but his entire ranch
did burn out. So even though his cattle survived, he
still had to sell sixty percent of his livestock because
the ground wasn't healthy enough for his actual full herd.
So you know, there's a lot of those kind of
decisions having to be made. And I think, you know,
on the other hand, like there are ranchers out there
who lost both their ranch and their livestock and decided
that it was time to call it quits. And you
know a lot of them, or at least I should
say one in particular that I spoke with he was
already at that age towards retirement. He was already considering it,
and the fire just kind of helped him make that
decision sooner. But that's that's just unfortunately, the reality of
what they're they're dealing with right now is just making
those hard decisions.
Speaker 1: And this is not like the only challenge that ranchers
and farmers in Texas are facing. I mean, we've got,
you know, have had intermittent drought over the last of
recent years. Now we're talking a lot more about Avian
flu other threats, you know, just like the uh sort
of a lot of farmers are reaching retirement age and
not deciding not to you know, don't have anyone to
inherit their their work. What is the current sort of
state of the state for agriculture. Was the impact for
consumers too, as that sort of begins to face increasing threats.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, just thinking about consumers in general,
we have to think about basic supply and demand, right.
I mean, one of the biggest poultry farms in Texas
last year had to kill more than a million infected
chickens that had the bird flu. And you know, cattle
country hasn't been the same since the fires happened. And
so while we have our poultry producers and our ranchers
kind of in that influx, you know, that leaves us
the consumers kind of just waiting to see what happens.
And we have seen what has happened over the last
few weeks with rising egg prices. But then you know,
like you mentioned, you throw drought in there with all
the other business ending type of factors, and it really
just adds up. It's been a very rough couple of
years for farmers in Texas.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. Yeah, Well, I've got an update on a story.
So we are very excited to bring this to you.
The Texas Tribune so rarely writes stories with a little
bit of hope in them. Increasingly we write sort of
dismal stories about the horrors of our world. But in
this case, right after the fires, my colleague Stephen Simpson
was up in the Panhandle covering the hearings and he
wrote a story about a Panhandle rancher named Dale Jenkins
who emerged from the fires with one unharmed calf named Bobo.
This was the story of Bobo, and people loved this story.
We got a ton of feedback on it. We should say,
Dale Jenkins also his adult you know heard survived, so
this was just one calf that was unharmed. So we
asked Stephen to follow up with Dale ahead of this
week's episode to get a Bobo update. And this is
what Dale had to say about Bobo quote. I actually
had Bobo listed in my production sale for this March
twenty second, but yesterday he failed a fertility test and
I told my wife he would have to go to slaughter.
She's insisting that I not do that and instead use
him as a sterile bull often called a gomer bull
for my AI parentheses artificial insemination not intelligence program to
help me identify females in heat. So Bobo lives, no baby.
Bobo's but Bobo was saved from slaughter by Dale Jenkins's wife.
Speaker 2: You know, I think I feel like if he if
he had promoted him as an Ai cow, he sucker.
You know, that's really buzzy.
Speaker 1: Everyone in Austin was like, wait, an Ai, we're saving
him for Ai. I'll give you a million exactly. But no,
we're thrilled to tell everyone that, you know, Bobo almost
died twice, survived the fires, survived the slaughterhouse, and it's
going to be living out his days identifying females in heat.
So that's our update on Bobo. Definitely, do you have
any other Matthew. We have a forthcoming story this week
from Jamie on you know, sort of the legislative priorities
around wildfires. But I just want to thank Jamie for
joining us and for your coverage, you know, during a
very difficult time last year. And doctor Purdham for your
for joining us and for your ongoing work in the
Panhandle on the wildfires. Thank you both for joining us.
That's it for today. You can find all episodes of
the Trip cast on YouTube or wherever you find your podcasts.
Be sure to like, subscribe, and share the podcast on
all of your platforms. If you'd like to get in
touch with the team, you can reach us at tripcast
at Texastribune dot org. We want to thank our sponsor,
the Texas Tribune Speakers Bureau. Our producers are Rob Avila,
who has returned from Japan.
Speaker 2: I hope the Japanese musical tour was great. I hope
everyone rocked out to the tripcast.
Speaker 1: Theme absolutely and Chris Swoboda, who was not invited to Japan.
And there's no beef happening in our back room right now.
Speaker 2: And much like we will not forget Bobo, we will
not forget this injustice.
Speaker 1: Absolutely until Chris is taken to Japan, we will not
rest our theme music is composed by Rob the Betrayer.
See you next week.