Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Texas Tribune trip Cast for Tuesday,
Speaker 1: August twenty sixth, twenty twenty five. My name is Matthew Watkins,
Speaker 1: editor in chief of the Texas Tribune. And you know,
Speaker 1: a hunch tells me Eleanor that this could possibly be
Speaker 1: our last trib cast recorded of twenty twenty five, that is,
Speaker 1: during a legislative session.
Speaker 2: I cannot believe you would say that and curse us
Speaker 2: like this. I just want you to know that, like,
Speaker 2: come Christmas, when we're still doing this, I will pull
Speaker 2: back this quote and throw this in your face. Let's say,
Speaker 2: I hope greatly that this is the last trip cast
Speaker 2: we are doing during a special session.
Speaker 1: This, of course, is because lawmakers have passed the maps,
Speaker 1: three districting maps, the topic of the trip cast for
Speaker 1: the past to maybe three weeks, in the middle of
Speaker 1: the night Saturday morning, Friday night, staving off a Democratic filibuster,
Speaker 1: which you know, we can talk about the rules, we
Speaker 1: can talk about all that, but I think those of
Speaker 1: us who were expecting to have to work through the
Speaker 1: weekend were greatly relieved about.
Speaker 2: Some of us who were so this is funny. Actually,
Speaker 2: I was on the was supposed to be on the
Speaker 2: five am to nine am filibuster shift, and I went
Speaker 2: to bed. My whole plan right was like, go to
Speaker 2: bed at nine pm on Friday night because I have
Speaker 2: to be up at five am. So at midnight I
Speaker 2: go to bed. I went to bed.
Speaker 3: I'm not joking.
Speaker 2: What must have been three minutes before they said you
Speaker 2: cannot fill a Buster still woke up at four forty
Speaker 2: five am, saw that they had designed out Philbuster, went
Speaker 2: back to sleep, and then woke up at nine am like,
Speaker 2: oh god, I hope that wasn't a dream. And I
Speaker 2: didn't go back to sleep, and everyone's like, where is
Speaker 2: Eleanor anyway? So the timing was terrible, but the you know,
Speaker 2: my sleep debt appreciated it.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm glad you were able to go back to sleep.
Speaker 1: I've reached the age of my life where if I
Speaker 1: wake up, I'm it's it's over for me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, four forty five is pretty like I can get back.
Speaker 3: I can get back to sleep. I can make it happen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, very good that voice.
Speaker 3: Of course.
Speaker 1: Eleanor klivanoff law and politics reporter for the Text Tribune.
Speaker 1: I will eventually get that correct.
Speaker 3: You'll create a editor in chief.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, I love that you think I actually have
Speaker 1: that much power and it's.
Speaker 3: Not I did cook up the name myself.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's very good. We are joined this week
Speaker 1: by climate reporter I do. I got that one easily,
Speaker 1: Emily fox Hall, joining us from what is not ary
Speaker 1: Potter closet in Houston.
Speaker 4: Hello, Emily, Hi, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: So Yeah, we, like I said, we I'm going to
Speaker 1: finish my thought here. The maps have passed. They are
Speaker 1: on their way to governor rabbits desk. Now, we have
Speaker 1: a text legislature that is very tired, that is very
Speaker 1: sick of being in Austin.
Speaker 3: Very angry with each other.
Speaker 1: Very angry with each other. And I think, you know,
Speaker 1: we got a three day weekend coming up. I think
Speaker 1: they're going to want to try to get this done
Speaker 1: and move on and and and and finish their work
Speaker 1: for the year.
Speaker 3: Is what Dustin Burrough said. We're going to get this
Speaker 3: thing done by Labor Day.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3: And so the other big priority left.
Speaker 1: To do is flooding, which is why Emily is here.
Speaker 1: Emily has been watching very long and emotional committee hearings
Speaker 1: over this measure, over over you know, response to the floods.
Speaker 1: She has been writing about the various legislative responses to
Speaker 1: those floods, and that is what we are going to
Speaker 1: talk about today, Emily, I want to start by just
Speaker 1: you know, I think you know, committee hearings are often
Speaker 1: dry affairs. You know, you get a few bills a
Speaker 1: year that have the kind of emotional kind of testimony
Speaker 1: that happens. This one was a particular one. We saw families,
Speaker 1: particularly from Camp Mystic, coming and talking to lawmakers. Lawmakers
Speaker 1: being I think like pretty blunt and frank and sometimes
Speaker 1: even kind of apologizing for their own kind of mistakes
Speaker 1: and past things that happen. Can you just kind of
Speaker 1: tell us a little bit about what you've seen, particularly
Speaker 1: from those hearings in recent days and weeks, as lawmakers
Speaker 1: come together and try to, you know, prevent something like
Speaker 1: this from happening again.
Speaker 4: They have been definitely very emotional. It's interesting just thinking back,
Speaker 4: I feel like so much has happened. It's almost been
Speaker 4: two months since the floods, so it's really felt like
Speaker 4: a whirlwind of these hearings. But if we go back
Speaker 4: to the start, there were special committees at appointed in
Speaker 4: both the House and the Senate to look at flooding
Speaker 4: issues and disaster issues, and the first sort of like
Speaker 4: marathon hearing they held together was really focused on the
Speaker 4: disaster response. So nim Kid was kind of like the
Speaker 4: star of the show that day.
Speaker 1: He's the head of emergency management for the state. Good yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you.
Speaker 4: He just sort of went through like a litany of issues.
Speaker 4: It was like almost overwhelming how many things had gone wrong.
Speaker 4: So just to give you a few examples, he went
Speaker 4: over how emergency management coordinators who can help county judges
Speaker 4: or mayors in emergencies, they don't have any licensing requirements
Speaker 4: in the state. He also went through a bunch of
Speaker 4: problems that happened with you know, so many people died
Speaker 4: in this disaster that the Justices of the peace and
Speaker 4: the medical examiners who came into help sounded like they
Speaker 4: had some issues keeping first deciding when autopsies were really needed,
Speaker 4: and then second, just like managing so many bodies, like
Speaker 4: multiple family members from within the same family died and
Speaker 4: the bodies got sent to different places, which made it
Speaker 4: harder on the families trying to recover. So anyway, all
Speaker 4: to say, you know, that first hearing was sort of
Speaker 4: like you could see lawmakers getting frustrated with these sort
Speaker 4: of repeat problems and that. Yeah, so that kind of
Speaker 4: culminated in later that day some discussion two of the
Speaker 4: local river authority not pursuing grand funding, and there was
Speaker 4: sort of an outburst by lawmakers at that moment too,
Speaker 4: at the end of what had already been a really
Speaker 4: long day with a lot of issues over frustration with
Speaker 4: you know, they had an opportunity, in the lawmaker's view,
Speaker 4: to put these sirens up and didn't move ahead with it.
Speaker 4: So we went from that all the way to more
Speaker 4: recently when the Camp Mystic family spoke, and as you mentioned,
Speaker 4: it was just hugely emotional with people walking through, you know,
Speaker 4: the grief of losing children, kind of being haunted by
Speaker 4: these nightmares of imagining what those last minutes were like
Speaker 4: for these little girls as the floodwaters rose while they
Speaker 4: were in their cabins. And I also was just struck
Speaker 4: in that hearing by not only the grief but also
Speaker 4: like the strength these parents were really pushing for change
Speaker 4: and not asking anyone, you know, to like feel sorry
Speaker 4: for them, but asking for these bills to make camp safer.
Speaker 4: So it was both very sad but also a very
Speaker 4: like admirable effort. You know, they were really focused on
Speaker 4: making change in that one, and you could see lawmakers
Speaker 4: you know again kind of these frustration with errors that
Speaker 4: have sort of long been known as problems in this state.
Speaker 4: But also many of them were moved, you know, lawmakers
Speaker 4: removed tears. So it was certainly a heavy feeling watching those.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I want I want to go back to the
Speaker 1: first part. I think we should talk about the camp
Speaker 1: mistic families and everything there. But going back to your
Speaker 1: first kind of statement, I mean, something that has stood
Speaker 1: out to me from the beginning here was the sort
Speaker 1: of lack of professional expectations for these particularly like more
Speaker 1: rural small town officials, whether that's you know, the emergency
Speaker 1: management coordinators or you know, people going out for jogs
Speaker 1: in the middle of the night when like flooding has
Speaker 1: already started and everything like that. In some ways, maybe
Speaker 1: it almost felt like, uh, you know, underresourced local governments
Speaker 1: not fully comprehending the scope of their responsibilities or what
Speaker 1: needed to be done in order to keep their constituents
Speaker 1: or people visiting their communities safe. I'm curious, you know
Speaker 1: you heard all that, you heard that frustration from nim Kid,
Speaker 1: who of course is a professional and who has dealt
Speaker 1: with you know, if not dozens, then at probably at
Speaker 1: least a dozen like major catastrophes in the state for
Speaker 1: a long time. But you know, he can't be deploying
Speaker 1: everywhere across the state every moment everything comes up. They're
Speaker 1: you know, usually coming in after the terrible thing has
Speaker 1: already happened. I mean, did you since any kind of
Speaker 1: effort or intention by lawmaker to kind of change that
Speaker 1: in terms of giving those local entities the infrastructure needed,
Speaker 1: training needed, or whatever else it is to make them
Speaker 1: be more prepared for future events like this.
Speaker 4: That's definitely a big piece of the problem. I spoke
Speaker 4: to one expert early on who said, the state Emergency
Speaker 4: Department really has like relatively a good reputation in the country,
Speaker 4: and as you said, they are professional, they're somewhat well funded.
Speaker 4: And so this woman was telling me often these local
Speaker 4: governments can get kind of lost that people don't realize
Speaker 4: just how much the local governments are struggling in disasters
Speaker 4: because the state comes in so quickly. But in this case,
Speaker 4: you know, the disaster really happened over a matter of hours.
Speaker 4: They call it flash flooding for a reason, and so
Speaker 4: you see the gaps in the local response very clearly
Speaker 4: in this case. The one hearing we didn't talk about
Speaker 4: was the one that was in Kirk County that was
Speaker 4: you know, sort of like a mounting sense of anger
Speaker 4: with the way the local authorities, you know, essentially just
Speaker 4: weren't awake. The county judge who's supposed to be responsible
Speaker 4: for emergency scenarios was asleep at another home, you know,
Speaker 4: at a lake home that they have, and the county
Speaker 4: emergency management coordinator was sick and also asleep as these
Speaker 4: floodwaters were rising. So that's clearly been established as part
Speaker 4: of the issue here. But the changes the lawmakers have
Speaker 4: made is to put in now they're going to have
Speaker 4: licensing requirements under these proposed bills for emergency management coordinators,
Speaker 4: so that will come with some training, and they're trying
Speaker 4: to put in place kind of like a chain of
Speaker 4: command where if the county judge isn't awake or the
Speaker 4: emergency management isn't awake, here's who the responsibility will fall to.
Speaker 4: I remember hearing though, it's like if you're going to
Speaker 4: train the emergency management coordinator, like there seem to be
Speaker 4: some questions about who in the chain of command is
Speaker 4: actually going to get the training right, Like if you
Speaker 4: go down the chain and that person doesn't understand what's
Speaker 4: going on, that feels like a gap I've been interested in.
Speaker 3: But like I.
Speaker 2: Assume like most of these people, like you know, you
Speaker 2: go decades, maybe your entire career as like a county judge,
Speaker 2: and you never have a disaster like this, right, So,
Speaker 2: like I understand sort of on a human level, how
Speaker 2: easy it is to get kind of complacent and to
Speaker 2: think like, yeah, I'm the guy that like if there's
Speaker 2: a disaster, they will call, But like that doesn't mean
Speaker 2: I can never go to my friend's lake house and
Speaker 2: then this happens and you think like oh shit, basically,
Speaker 2: and so like it is it's interesting to me that
Speaker 2: they like didn't have a chain of command of like
Speaker 2: you know, I bet there were a lot of counties
Speaker 2: out there that weren't affected by flooding that now were
Speaker 2: like whose job was, Like if this was us, whose
Speaker 2: job is this?
Speaker 3: And like it's interesting they're going to put that in
Speaker 3: place now.
Speaker 4: And there's so many compounding issues with this, right, I Mean,
Speaker 4: there's these questions of like do people understand the difference
Speaker 4: between a flood watch and a flood warning?
Speaker 3: No, thank you.
Speaker 2: We've talked about that on this song here with Yeah,
Speaker 2: like right after it's like, I think it's one of
Speaker 2: those things like, you know, the weather people vastly overestimate
Speaker 2: how much people can keep that straight in their brains.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, And then these problems of just warning fatigue,
Speaker 4: like maybe some of these officials or some people who
Speaker 4: were visiting saw the watch, but they didn't you know,
Speaker 4: take action or necessarily prepare for it, because so many
Speaker 4: times we get these watches and nothing, nothing happens.
Speaker 1: How much is this response, particularly around emergency response. You've
Speaker 1: written about a few different bills, Centate Bill two, which
Speaker 1: I think pertains more to the justices of peace and
Speaker 1: how to handle the bodies that you already mentioned, the
Speaker 1: training program for them, Housepeled three creating a Texas inter
Speaker 1: Operability Council to kind of help develop strategic plans and
Speaker 1: communication and everything like that. Some other bills related to
Speaker 1: that as well. How much of this response, particularly around
Speaker 1: emergency preparedness for local governments, is addressing what Eleanor just
Speaker 1: talked about, where it's like sure in Kerr County. There's
Speaker 1: a flood, and you could be worried about that, but
Speaker 1: you know, in the Panhandle or on the Gulf Coast
Speaker 1: or you know, it's it could be something that we're
Speaker 1: not already talking about anymore. Like, do you think that
Speaker 1: the actions that are being taken by this legislature in
Speaker 1: response to this are going to help the next thing
Speaker 1: that comes along that we're not talking about right now,
Speaker 1: a flood?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Yeah, a lot of the legislation looks really reactive to me.
Speaker 4: You know, the bills that you mentioned SB two with
Speaker 4: the trainings and the dealing with the bodies, a lot
Speaker 4: of that just came straight out of the hearing from
Speaker 4: what nim Kid told lawmakers was a problem. The other
Speaker 4: big piece of legislation we haven't mentioned yet was SB three,
Speaker 4: which is the bill that's going to require sirens in
Speaker 4: certain parts of the Hill Country, and that's very focused
Speaker 4: on this area where the disaster occurred. You know, it's
Speaker 4: focused on flash flood Alley specifically, and we'll set aside
Speaker 4: if it passes, some money to fund these required siren
Speaker 4: and early notification systems. So yeah, I think this point
Speaker 4: you raise is something I've been thinking a lot about
Speaker 4: the last two months. Because you all know I live
Speaker 4: in Houston. I've covered so many hurricanes. Sometimes as a reporter,
Speaker 4: I feel like I'm just going from one disaster to
Speaker 4: the next, and you see kind of this cycle, right,
Speaker 4: It's like this grief and mourning and shock at what happened.
Speaker 4: There's this immediate reaction to trying to fix the very
Speaker 4: specific problem, and then there's this recovery which we try
Speaker 4: to pay attention to, but often we are just moving
Speaker 4: on to the next thing. So I think I'm certainly
Speaker 4: hoping to do some more reporting looking at how there
Speaker 4: are opportunities. The state has had to be more forward looking,
Speaker 4: and a big part of this legislation so far that
Speaker 4: I've seen is pretty reactive to this specific issue. But
Speaker 4: there's certainly things that I think they expect to help
Speaker 4: make emergency response better. There's some measures in the camp
Speaker 4: safety bills that the Mystic Parents have pushed that will
Speaker 4: make camps, you know, trying to get cabins out of
Speaker 4: the floodplane will help keep people out of harm's way
Speaker 4: in the future. And there is some money that's being
Speaker 4: set aside to improve weather forecasting, you know, so a
Speaker 4: lot of environmental groups have really supported that one as
Speaker 4: a pretty forward looking at a bill. But of course
Speaker 4: you're right, every disaster is different, every part of the
Speaker 4: state faces different disasters, and you know, kind of like
Speaker 4: these big discussions, for example, on what flood plain development
Speaker 4: should look like, those really haven't happened that I've heard
Speaker 4: in these meetings so far.
Speaker 2: Because it is interesting that like the bill that I
Speaker 2: think got a lot of spotlight that didn't pass during
Speaker 2: the regular session was actually was being carried by Ken
Speaker 2: King in part because as a response to the Panhandle wildfires.
Speaker 2: And it's like, you know, I mean, there's obvious a
Speaker 2: lot of discussion about whether or not that well, actually, I think
Speaker 2: it's clear that that would not have been in place
Speaker 2: in time to.
Speaker 3: Help with this.
Speaker 2: But it's like, like you said, we're just moving from
Speaker 2: like one disaster to the next of like wildfire response,
Speaker 2: Like then the windows between them are becoming narrower and narrower.
Speaker 1: You mentioned the camp Safety Bill. Let's talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about that and that committee hearing. I want to
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about the parents first. I mean,
Speaker 1: you mentioned there's a lot of bravery and of course
Speaker 1: a ton of sadness I mean, one of the things
Speaker 1: that has stuck with me is the picture that ran
Speaker 1: at the top of one of your stories, right where
Speaker 1: you you see these families in the in the gallery
Speaker 1: and just the pain on their faces. It like, there's
Speaker 1: been very few things since those floods that have really
Speaker 1: hit me as hard as that. Just how sad and
Speaker 1: how much human suffering there is, and how brave it
Speaker 1: is to be going out and speaking about this, you know,
Speaker 1: when when the pain is so raw. Tell us a
Speaker 1: little bit about just what you were hearing from parents,
Speaker 1: what lawmakers were hearing from parents in these hearings about,
Speaker 1: you know, how they're feeling and what they want to
Speaker 1: see coming out of this.
Speaker 5: Mm hmm.
Speaker 4: It's an interesting one because it wasn't a part of
Speaker 4: the first special session. These bills kind of came in
Speaker 4: more recent weeks as the parents got organized and you know,
Speaker 4: really pushed to get this as part of the agenda.
Speaker 4: They saw there was like really a gap in kind
Speaker 4: of comprehensive legislation. Looking at the camps where several dozen
Speaker 4: kids die to can't mistic you know. So, I don't
Speaker 4: know what struck me the most from the hearing with
Speaker 4: the parents was the details like this dad talking about
Speaker 4: the countless hands of go fish and uno he played
Speaker 4: with his kid, the many pages of books they read
Speaker 4: before he put her to sleep every night, and kind
Speaker 4: of like this morning of the futures that their kids
Speaker 4: weren't going to get. You know, now we're in fall
Speaker 4: almost and it's back to school time, and so parents
Speaker 4: were remembering. You know, for one, it was thinking that
Speaker 4: their daughter was going to be there to hold the
Speaker 4: hand of the other kid as they went to school,
Speaker 4: or the daughter who poured the bowl of cheerios for
Speaker 4: the younger child so they could get extra sleep, the
Speaker 4: daughter who was supposed to be going to college moving
Speaker 4: into college right now. So a lot of it was
Speaker 4: just kind of this raw emotion of you send your
Speaker 4: kid to camp what for many is like a generational experience,
Speaker 4: and they think they're going to be having fun riding
Speaker 4: horses and shooting archery, and then, you know, one woman said,
Speaker 4: I never could I have dreamed that my kid was
Speaker 4: going to come home in a in a coffin. So
Speaker 4: it was sort of this grappling with guilt, like they
Speaker 4: felt like they should have protected their kids in some cases,
Speaker 4: and they felt as parents that they let them down,
Speaker 4: a grappling with grief and loss of the past and
Speaker 4: of the future, and then you know, a very forceful
Speaker 4: call basically to say make this right. You know, don't
Speaker 4: let any parent be gripped by the trauma that we
Speaker 4: are feeling right now.
Speaker 1: And is would you say, the main focus of what
Speaker 1: they were asking for, the main focus of sort of
Speaker 1: where they were directing there for a lack of a
Speaker 1: better term, blame for what happened, was the location of
Speaker 1: the cabins in the floodplain. Is that what they're focus
Speaker 1: was in terms of trying to enact change by showing
Speaker 1: up at these hearings.
Speaker 4: Right, getting cabins out of the floodplane is a big piece.
Speaker 4: Also the fact that, as they told the story, the plan,
Speaker 4: the emergency plan for the kids was to stay in
Speaker 4: the cabin, and several of them expressed the sentiment that
Speaker 4: they raise their kids to follow rules and to follow orders,
Speaker 4: and in this case doing so got them killed. So
Speaker 4: these bills House Built one and Senate Bill one both
Speaker 4: have components of requiring the camps to have these emergency
Speaker 4: plans for what to do in the case of flooding.
Speaker 4: You know, when do you evacuate and when do you
Speaker 4: shelter in place? Because different you know, different disasters have
Speaker 4: different requirements with them. And the Senate bill goes even
Speaker 4: further to say, you know, if there is a flash
Speaker 4: flood warning and kids are in the floodplane, you need
Speaker 4: to move them out.
Speaker 3: No more.
Speaker 4: Is this going to be a subjective question about whether
Speaker 4: and what to do in the case of a warning,
Speaker 4: but it will be required under that bill.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean it's so like are the Texas munto a story?
Speaker 2: Looking at how like there was a similar disaster right
Speaker 2: in the eighties and people died, children died because they
Speaker 2: were evacuating. Like it seems like these camps, you know,
Speaker 2: they're built on the water, they're built to like engage
Speaker 2: with the with the river and with the water. But
Speaker 2: are It's like a damned if you do, damned if
Speaker 2: you don't sort of situation in terms of knowing how
Speaker 2: to and like putting so much of this on like teenagers,
Speaker 2: to know how to respond to get younger kids out
Speaker 2: is just like one of those things again like reactive.
Speaker 2: But you look back and you think, like who could
Speaker 2: have ever let this happen? Who could have ever let
Speaker 2: this get to this point.
Speaker 1: Right, And and that's where I think the the you know,
Speaker 1: failure of imagination kind of comes in, right of what
Speaker 1: could happen and what do we react? How do we
Speaker 1: react when it does happen? I mean, you know you,
Speaker 1: I'm sort of reading directly from your story here. But
Speaker 1: House Bill one, which is the bill that particularly pertains
Speaker 1: to camps, would require operators to develop emergency plans, including
Speaker 1: for disasters. They would have to be submitted by the state.
Speaker 1: They would include information on when to shelter or evacuate,
Speaker 1: and you know, campers need to know, like be taught
Speaker 1: how to react to that. And then another one I
Speaker 1: think is important. We talked a little about this in
Speaker 1: the immediate aftermath of just like putting evacuation routes on
Speaker 1: the on the doors of the cabins, right of this
Speaker 1: is where you go to get to higher ground. Right,
Speaker 1: If you're evacuating through a low lying area, that's going
Speaker 1: to be dangerous. But if you can identify ahead of
Speaker 1: time where you're going to be most safe from floodwaters,
Speaker 1: even for a short period of time, that that can
Speaker 1: make a big difference.
Speaker 2: And sorry, would any of these bills and if you
Speaker 2: said this make it like, like, are we saying like
Speaker 2: you just can't put cabins in floodplains anymore?
Speaker 3: I mean, are we going that far?
Speaker 4: Right? The state won't license a camp if they have
Speaker 4: a cabin in okay, But the big caveat here is
Speaker 4: it's not going to apply to camps that are on lakes,
Speaker 4: so that would be you know, a camp like Camp Longhorn.
Speaker 4: I think they're they're trying to make this very specifically
Speaker 4: for camps that are along rivers, which is something I'm
Speaker 4: trying to understand.
Speaker 2: More right, So it's sort of again very reactive. I mean,
Speaker 2: I'm also curious how this. Like I was out in
Speaker 2: Kerville right after the floods and like obviously like so
Speaker 2: much attention correctly on these camps and just like the
Speaker 2: horrors of what happened there. But you know, we also
Speaker 2: saw like r V parks get washed away. We saw
Speaker 2: these like a lot of other development in low lying
Speaker 2: areas that also you know are like sometimes vacationers, but
Speaker 2: sometimes a lot of people I talk to were like
Speaker 2: vulnerable people who had an r V and thewhere else
Speaker 2: to live or things like that.
Speaker 3: Does any of this like address that?
Speaker 4: Not that I have seen I mean, you know, insofar
Speaker 4: as the emergency response would address how you respond to
Speaker 4: emergencies anywhere, but there anytime floodplain regulation has come up
Speaker 4: in the hearings. You know, there was a moment I
Speaker 4: think it was Senator Menendez who had said, you know,
Speaker 4: wouldn't it be better if the kids will let me
Speaker 4: back this up. So before the camp bill came up,
Speaker 4: the plan was to require camps to evacuate kids from
Speaker 4: cabins if they were in the floodplane and if that failed,
Speaker 4: require the cabins to have a ladder so the kids
Speaker 4: could climb on the roof of the cabin if for
Speaker 4: some reason the water started coming and they hadn't evacuated.
Speaker 4: And I think it was Senator Menendez who said, you know,
Speaker 4: wouldn't it be better for the cabins not to be
Speaker 4: there in the first place. And Senator Perry said, you know,
Speaker 4: something to the effects of like we're not gonna go
Speaker 4: down the road of floodplain regulation, that that has been
Speaker 4: discussed in the past, that if we take that up,
Speaker 4: you know, all of Houston needs to be redesigned. So
Speaker 4: kind of like that's just political resistance has poked up
Speaker 4: time and again about looking holistically at floodplains, and I'm
Speaker 4: curious to see if that's going to change at all
Speaker 4: in the next you know, six months to a year
Speaker 4: as they continue to look at this. But it's definitely
Speaker 4: sort of the big piece to me is these decisions
Speaker 4: about where we build and how we build. But it's
Speaker 4: been explained to me it's like Texas is a property
Speaker 4: rights state. You know, there's a huge respect for letting
Speaker 4: people make choices about how they use their property. So
Speaker 4: that seems to be sort of politically what's that play here?
Speaker 1: It right? I mean, I think that's right. It bears
Speaker 1: just sort of emphasizing though that what happened at Can't
Speaker 1: Mistick was horrible and you know, should steps should be
Speaker 1: taken to prevent it. But even if you take Can't
Speaker 1: miss It out of the equation, another one hundred and
Speaker 1: eleven people died in these floods, and they were not
Speaker 1: at camps. They were at like you said, RVs, they
Speaker 1: were in cabins, many of them from out of town
Speaker 1: presumably had no idea, you know, where the floodplaine was
Speaker 1: or anything like that. I mean, it feels to me
Speaker 1: like if it were ever going to happen. If the
Speaker 1: state were ever going to take steps to you know,
Speaker 1: make more rules about what goes on in the floodplane
Speaker 1: or what can be built in the floodplane, it would
Speaker 1: be right now after you know, over one hundred and
Speaker 1: thirty people died. And if we're not doing it now,
Speaker 1: Like how how what is the political path of that
Speaker 1: happening in twenty twenty seven? I just I just don't
Speaker 1: see it.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's like it's different, right, but it's like
Speaker 2: after uv All Day, where it's like, if you're not
Speaker 2: going to do gun restrictions now, you're not going to
Speaker 2: do it.
Speaker 3: If you're not going to do floodplain restrictions now.
Speaker 5: You know, maybe that's just the way it is in Texas,
Speaker 5: But I mean, what about just I mean, you could
Speaker 5: require evacuation routes and evacuation processes for airbnbs or hotels
Speaker 5: or RV areas.
Speaker 1: I mean, is is there any of that in the legislation?
Speaker 4: Emily, I'm really curious what's going to happen with the
Speaker 4: with the siren legislation, because that, I think is where
Speaker 4: I've had a lot of conversations around this education component.
Speaker 4: You know, experts who study warning systems, say, you can't
Speaker 4: just put a siren up and expect that when it blairs,
Speaker 4: people are going to know what that means or what
Speaker 4: to do. Like if you're from a tornado prone place,
Speaker 4: you might stay put, which is exactly what you shouldn't
Speaker 4: do if there's a flash flood. So the legislation is
Speaker 4: really kind of leaves a lot of the details to
Speaker 4: rule making. You know, it's the Texas Water Development Board
Speaker 4: that's going to put in place the real specific rules
Speaker 4: about what these warning system look like. But I've talked
Speaker 4: to people who have said, you know, it could be
Speaker 4: that you check in at a hotel or you check
Speaker 4: in at your campsite and they pass you a piece
Speaker 4: of paper that says, here's the risk you are facing,
Speaker 4: and when the siren goes off, here is what to
Speaker 4: do and where to go. And so that's kind of
Speaker 4: where I will be looking to see what the education
Speaker 4: components look like there, because you're right, I mean, some
Speaker 4: of this is people who live or have second homes
Speaker 4: on the river, but a lot of it is tourism.
Speaker 4: Especially because this disaster happened on July fourth, there were
Speaker 4: a lot of people there who just may not have known,
Speaker 4: you know what flash flaw Daley is what that river
Speaker 4: you know that normally looks pretty peaceful, Like the rage
Speaker 4: that it can kind of bear down on these locations
Speaker 4: is something that could be communicated when you when you
Speaker 4: check in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean I've said this on this podcast before,
Speaker 1: but my family, my wife's has family up on the
Speaker 1: Oregon coast and you know, there is a constant threat
Speaker 1: of tsunami there, including what they call like the Big
Speaker 1: one that is, you know, they know, going to wipe
Speaker 1: out a ton of property and things like that. And
Speaker 1: if when you check in to the Airbnb or wherever
Speaker 1: there's a there's there is something on the door, and
Speaker 1: there is something telling you where to go, and there's
Speaker 1: supply kits you know that are already stationed in high ground,
Speaker 1: and there's signs everywhere that's like tsunami evacuation route, follow
Speaker 1: these things. It doesn't feel like it would be that
Speaker 1: onerous or expensive to require those kinds of disclosures and
Speaker 1: things along those lines.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we have so many disasters here, I mean, what
Speaker 2: are you gonna do? Like a wildfire warning and a
Speaker 2: hurricane warning and the you know, like we've got a
Speaker 2: lot of crises to manage, like, yeah, it's a higher
Speaker 2: bar here than one tsunami.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Emily, what are you just watching as this plays
Speaker 1: out in the coming days, Like what's what do you
Speaker 1: think is still sort of at stake or up in
Speaker 1: the air or are you curious to see how it
Speaker 1: plays out?
Speaker 4: Definitely curious. I mean a lot of these bills have
Speaker 4: made it through both chambers and now they're kind of
Speaker 4: at this like agreeing on the little changes that are
Speaker 4: being made back and forth. So we're kind of just
Speaker 4: following to see if some argument appears that you know,
Speaker 4: we didn't know about or didn't expect. But yeah, it's
Speaker 4: it'll be It'll be interesting to see where it lands.
Speaker 4: And then my understanding is these committees, I think at
Speaker 4: least one of them, they've said they will keep going
Speaker 4: after this. So what those hearings take up, you know,
Speaker 4: with a little more breathing room, I think will be important.
Speaker 2: As you said, I mean, if these bills pass sort
Speaker 2: of in their like the form they kind of are
Speaker 2: now and go into effect, do you feel like, big picture,
Speaker 2: we will be more protected from this happening again and
Speaker 2: being as horrific as we were before.
Speaker 4: July fourth, I'm like, are you asking me an opinion? Illinois?
Speaker 2: I'll you what you know, I can't have those you've talked,
Speaker 2: you have told you.
Speaker 4: I think on many of these bills, experts who follow
Speaker 4: these issues have said these are good first steps. Right, No,
Speaker 4: we're just going to say that the steps the legislature
Speaker 4: is taking are not going to help in some incremental way.
Speaker 4: So yes, I think people are seeing some positive change
Speaker 4: come out of this. Again, there is an interest in
Speaker 4: these big picture issues and big picture conversations that you know,
Speaker 4: as I said, in disaster after disaster, it's really really
Speaker 4: difficult to get people to take a step back and
Speaker 4: like look holistically at the problems. So yes, I think
Speaker 4: this should again like kind of pending. There's a lot
Speaker 4: of rulemaking that has to happen along this stuff. So
Speaker 4: the devil in the details maybe to how successful this
Speaker 4: will be, but they definitely took steps to address some problems.
Speaker 4: I just think, you know, I guess I should say
Speaker 4: this is the climate reporter. The thing that people really
Speaker 4: have barely touched on is climate change and how these
Speaker 4: disasters are. You know, rain is more likely to be heavier,
Speaker 4: wildfire seasons are now longer, so what the state is
Speaker 4: facing today is not the same as what the state
Speaker 4: faced in the past, so that maybe even puts more
Speaker 4: pressure on these big picture questions. But did the state
Speaker 4: fix everything? I don't think anyone thinks that is the case.
Speaker 4: Did they fix some things, Yes, some people do feel like,
Speaker 4: you know, sirens will help in a region without cell
Speaker 4: service that's rural, and these emergency problems seem to have
Speaker 4: been long standing and they're taking steps, So I think
Speaker 4: that's where I would leave that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, ultimately, what the state is engaging in
Speaker 1: right now through is political process is a question whether
Speaker 1: they want to frame it this way or not of
Speaker 1: how much risk are we going to be comfortable with? Right,
Speaker 1: you can't eliminate all risk. You can't eliminate all risk.
Speaker 1: And you know, if we didn't want to risk any
Speaker 1: kind of like terrible accidents, we wouldn't have streets, and
Speaker 1: we wouldn't have cars, and we wouldn't have all those
Speaker 1: different types of things. Right, But like, what steps are
Speaker 1: we willing to take to intervene in the like free
Speaker 1: market and the choices of individuals in order to prevent
Speaker 1: them from something like this happening? And how far can
Speaker 1: you even go in a world where the climate is
Speaker 1: getting warmer, where extreme weather is a reality, to prevent
Speaker 1: these things from happening, you know, I think we're not
Speaker 1: going to change the political nature of this state where
Speaker 1: people like often want to air on the side of
Speaker 1: freedom and low regulation and allowing sort of the private
Speaker 1: sector to you know, fill the needs and desires of
Speaker 1: the people of the state.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I think that's perfectly put. How much risk are
Speaker 4: we willing to accept? And another piece of this is
Speaker 4: always how much are we willing to pay to lower
Speaker 4: that risk?
Speaker 1: Right? Okay, well, thank you Emily for talking this through.
Speaker 1: Thank you Eleanor, and thank you to our producers Rob
Speaker 1: and Chris. We will be back next week.