August 26, 2025 • 36 mins
In this week's episode, Matthew and Eleanor talk to Texas Tribune climate reporter Emily Foxhall about the emotional pleas Camp Mystic parents made to state lawmakers and analyze the proposed new laws in response to the Kerrville floods.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:20):
Hello, and welcome to the Texas Tribune trip Cast for Tuesday,
August twenty sixth, twenty twenty five. My name is Matthew Watkins,
editor in chief of the Texas Tribune. And you know,
a hunch tells me Eleanor that this could possibly be
our last trib cast recorded of twenty twenty five, that is,
(00:42):
during a legislative session.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
I cannot believe you would say that and curse us
like this. I just want you to know that, like,
come Christmas, when we're still doing this, I will pull
back this quote and throw this in your face. Let's say,
I hope greatly that this is the last trip cast
we are doing during a special session.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
This, of course, is because lawmakers have passed the maps,
three districting maps, the topic of the trip cast for
the past to maybe three weeks, in the middle of
the night Saturday morning, Friday night, staving off a Democratic filibuster,
which you know, we can talk about the rules, we
(01:27):
can talk about all that, but I think those of
us who were expecting to have to work through the
weekend were greatly relieved about.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Some of us who were so this is funny. Actually,
I was on the was supposed to be on the
five am to nine am filibuster shift, and I went
to bed. My whole plan right was like, go to
bed at nine pm on Friday night because I have
to be up at five am. So at midnight I
go to bed. I went to bed.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
I'm not joking.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
What must have been three minutes before they said you
cannot fill a Buster still woke up at four forty
five am, saw that they had designed out Philbuster, went
back to sleep, and then woke up at nine am like,
oh god, I hope that wasn't a dream. And I
didn't go back to sleep, and everyone's like, where is
Eleanor anyway? So the timing was terrible, but the you know,
(02:15):
my sleep debt appreciated it.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Well, I'm glad you were able to go back to sleep.
I've reached the age of my life where if I
wake up, I'm it's it's over for me.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
Yeah, four forty five is pretty like I can get back.
I can get back to sleep. I can make it happen.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Yeah, okay, very good that voice.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
Of course.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Eleanor klivanoff law and politics reporter for the Text Tribune.
I will eventually get that correct.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
You'll create a editor in chief.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
Yes, yes, I love that you think I actually have
that much power and it's.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Not I did cook up the name myself.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Yeah, yeah, that's very good. We are joined this week
by climate reporter I do. I got that one easily,
Emily fox Hall, joining us from what is not ary
Potter closet in Houston.
Speaker 4 (03:02):
Hello, Emily, Hi, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
So Yeah, we, like I said, we I'm going to
finish my thought here. The maps have passed. They are
on their way to governor rabbits desk. Now, we have
a text legislature that is very tired, that is very
sick of being in Austin.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
Very angry with each other.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Very angry with each other. And I think, you know,
we got a three day weekend coming up. I think
they're going to want to try to get this done
and move on and and and and finish their work
for the year.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
Is what Dustin Burrough said. We're going to get this
thing done by Labor Day.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
And so the other big priority left.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
To do is flooding, which is why Emily is here.
Emily has been watching very long and emotional committee hearings
over this measure, over over you know, response to the floods.
She has been writing about the various legislative responses to
(04:05):
those floods, and that is what we are going to
talk about today, Emily, I want to start by just
you know, I think you know, committee hearings are often
dry affairs. You know, you get a few bills a
year that have the kind of emotional kind of testimony
that happens. This one was a particular one. We saw families,
(04:29):
particularly from Camp Mystic, coming and talking to lawmakers. Lawmakers
being I think like pretty blunt and frank and sometimes
even kind of apologizing for their own kind of mistakes
and past things that happen. Can you just kind of
tell us a little bit about what you've seen, particularly
from those hearings in recent days and weeks, as lawmakers
(04:50):
come together and try to, you know, prevent something like
this from happening again.
Speaker 4 (04:55):
They have been definitely very emotional. It's interesting just thinking back,
I feel like so much has happened. It's almost been
two months since the floods, so it's really felt like
a whirlwind of these hearings. But if we go back
to the start, there were special committees at appointed in
both the House and the Senate to look at flooding
issues and disaster issues, and the first sort of like
(05:18):
marathon hearing they held together was really focused on the
disaster response. So nim Kid was kind of like the
star of the show that day.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
He's the head of emergency management for the state. Good yeah,
thank you.
Speaker 4 (05:35):
He just sort of went through like a litany of issues.
It was like almost overwhelming how many things had gone wrong.
So just to give you a few examples, he went
over how emergency management coordinators who can help county judges
or mayors in emergencies, they don't have any licensing requirements
(05:56):
in the state. He also went through a bunch of
problems that happened with you know, so many people died
in this disaster that the Justices of the peace and
the medical examiners who came into help sounded like they
had some issues keeping first deciding when autopsies were really needed,
and then second, just like managing so many bodies, like
(06:22):
multiple family members from within the same family died and
the bodies got sent to different places, which made it
harder on the families trying to recover. So anyway, all
to say, you know, that first hearing was sort of
like you could see lawmakers getting frustrated with these sort
of repeat problems and that. Yeah, so that kind of
(06:45):
culminated in later that day some discussion two of the
local river authority not pursuing grand funding, and there was
sort of an outburst by lawmakers at that moment too,
at the end of what had already been a really
long day with a lot of issues over frustration with
you know, they had an opportunity, in the lawmaker's view,
(07:06):
to put these sirens up and didn't move ahead with it.
So we went from that all the way to more
recently when the Camp Mystic family spoke, and as you mentioned,
it was just hugely emotional with people walking through, you know,
the grief of losing children, kind of being haunted by
these nightmares of imagining what those last minutes were like
(07:30):
for these little girls as the floodwaters rose while they
were in their cabins. And I also was just struck
in that hearing by not only the grief but also
like the strength these parents were really pushing for change
(07:51):
and not asking anyone, you know, to like feel sorry
for them, but asking for these bills to make camp safer.
So it was both very sad but also a very
like admirable effort. You know, they were really focused on
making change in that one, and you could see lawmakers
(08:13):
you know again kind of these frustration with errors that
have sort of long been known as problems in this state.
But also many of them were moved, you know, lawmakers
removed tears. So it was certainly a heavy feeling watching those.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Yeah, I want I want to go back to the
first part. I think we should talk about the camp
mistic families and everything there. But going back to your
first kind of statement, I mean, something that has stood
out to me from the beginning here was the sort
of lack of professional expectations for these particularly like more
(08:50):
rural small town officials, whether that's you know, the emergency
management coordinators or you know, people going out for jogs
in the middle of the night when like flooding has
already started and everything like that. In some ways, maybe
it almost felt like, uh, you know, underresourced local governments
(09:12):
not fully comprehending the scope of their responsibilities or what
needed to be done in order to keep their constituents
or people visiting their communities safe. I'm curious, you know
you heard all that, you heard that frustration from nim Kid,
who of course is a professional and who has dealt
(09:33):
with you know, if not dozens, then at probably at
least a dozen like major catastrophes in the state for
a long time. But you know, he can't be deploying
everywhere across the state every moment everything comes up. They're
you know, usually coming in after the terrible thing has
already happened. I mean, did you since any kind of
(09:57):
effort or intention by lawmaker to kind of change that
in terms of giving those local entities the infrastructure needed,
training needed, or whatever else it is to make them
be more prepared for future events like this.
Speaker 4 (10:15):
That's definitely a big piece of the problem. I spoke
to one expert early on who said, the state Emergency
Department really has like relatively a good reputation in the country,
and as you said, they are professional, they're somewhat well funded.
And so this woman was telling me often these local
governments can get kind of lost that people don't realize
(10:36):
just how much the local governments are struggling in disasters
because the state comes in so quickly. But in this case,
you know, the disaster really happened over a matter of hours.
They call it flash flooding for a reason, and so
you see the gaps in the local response very clearly
in this case. The one hearing we didn't talk about
(10:57):
was the one that was in Kirk County that was
you know, sort of like a mounting sense of anger
with the way the local authorities, you know, essentially just
weren't awake. The county judge who's supposed to be responsible
for emergency scenarios was asleep at another home, you know,
(11:18):
at a lake home that they have, and the county
emergency management coordinator was sick and also asleep as these
floodwaters were rising. So that's clearly been established as part
of the issue here. But the changes the lawmakers have
made is to put in now they're going to have
(11:39):
licensing requirements under these proposed bills for emergency management coordinators,
so that will come with some training, and they're trying
to put in place kind of like a chain of
command where if the county judge isn't awake or the
emergency management isn't awake, here's who the responsibility will fall to.
(12:00):
I remember hearing though, it's like if you're going to
train the emergency management coordinator, like there seem to be
some questions about who in the chain of command is
actually going to get the training right, Like if you
go down the chain and that person doesn't understand what's
going on, that feels like a gap I've been interested in.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
But like I.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Assume like most of these people, like you know, you
go decades, maybe your entire career as like a county judge,
and you never have a disaster like this, right, So,
like I understand sort of on a human level, how
easy it is to get kind of complacent and to
think like, yeah, I'm the guy that like if there's
a disaster, they will call, But like that doesn't mean
I can never go to my friend's lake house and
(12:41):
then this happens and you think like oh shit, basically,
and so like it is it's interesting to me that
they like didn't have a chain of command of like
you know, I bet there were a lot of counties
out there that weren't affected by flooding that now were
like whose job was, Like if this was us, whose
job is this?
Speaker 3 (12:57):
And like it's interesting they're going to put that in
place now.
Speaker 4 (13:01):
And there's so many compounding issues with this, right, I Mean,
there's these questions of like do people understand the difference
between a flood watch and a flood warning?
Speaker 3 (13:12):
No, thank you.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
We've talked about that on this song here with Yeah,
like right after it's like, I think it's one of
those things like, you know, the weather people vastly overestimate
how much people can keep that straight in their brains.
Speaker 4 (13:25):
Yeah, yeah, And then these problems of just warning fatigue,
like maybe some of these officials or some people who
were visiting saw the watch, but they didn't you know,
take action or necessarily prepare for it, because so many
times we get these watches and nothing, nothing happens.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
How much is this response, particularly around emergency response. You've
written about a few different bills, Centate Bill two, which
I think pertains more to the justices of peace and
how to handle the bodies that you already mentioned, the
training program for them, Housepeled three creating a Texas inter
Operability Council to kind of help develop strategic plans and
communication and everything like that. Some other bills related to
(14:09):
that as well. How much of this response, particularly around
emergency preparedness for local governments, is addressing what Eleanor just
talked about, where it's like sure in Kerr County. There's
a flood, and you could be worried about that, but
you know, in the Panhandle or on the Gulf Coast
or you know, it's it could be something that we're
(14:32):
not already talking about anymore. Like, do you think that
the actions that are being taken by this legislature in
response to this are going to help the next thing
that comes along that we're not talking about right now,
a flood?
Speaker 3 (14:44):
Right?
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (14:45):
Yeah, a lot of the legislation looks really reactive to me.
You know, the bills that you mentioned SB two with
the trainings and the dealing with the bodies, a lot
of that just came straight out of the hearing from
what nim Kid told lawmakers was a problem. The other
big piece of legislation we haven't mentioned yet was SB three,
(15:08):
which is the bill that's going to require sirens in
certain parts of the Hill Country, and that's very focused
on this area where the disaster occurred. You know, it's
focused on flash flood Alley specifically, and we'll set aside
if it passes, some money to fund these required siren
and early notification systems. So yeah, I think this point
(15:32):
you raise is something I've been thinking a lot about
the last two months. Because you all know I live
in Houston. I've covered so many hurricanes. Sometimes as a reporter,
I feel like I'm just going from one disaster to
the next, and you see kind of this cycle, right,
It's like this grief and mourning and shock at what happened.
(15:54):
There's this immediate reaction to trying to fix the very
specific problem, and then there's this recovery which we try
to pay attention to, but often we are just moving
on to the next thing. So I think I'm certainly
hoping to do some more reporting looking at how there
are opportunities. The state has had to be more forward looking,
(16:15):
and a big part of this legislation so far that
I've seen is pretty reactive to this specific issue. But
there's certainly things that I think they expect to help
make emergency response better. There's some measures in the camp
safety bills that the Mystic Parents have pushed that will
(16:36):
make camps, you know, trying to get cabins out of
the floodplane will help keep people out of harm's way
in the future. And there is some money that's being
set aside to improve weather forecasting, you know, so a
lot of environmental groups have really supported that one as
a pretty forward looking at a bill. But of course
you're right, every disaster is different, every part of the
(16:58):
state faces different disasters, and you know, kind of like
these big discussions, for example, on what flood plain development
should look like, those really haven't happened that I've heard
in these meetings so far.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
Because it is interesting that like the bill that I
think got a lot of spotlight that didn't pass during
the regular session was actually was being carried by Ken
King in part because as a response to the Panhandle wildfires.
And it's like, you know, I mean, there's obvious a
lot of discussion about whether or not that well, actually, I think
it's clear that that would not have been in place
in time to.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
Help with this.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
But it's like, like you said, we're just moving from
like one disaster to the next of like wildfire response,
Like then the windows between them are becoming narrower and narrower.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
You mentioned the camp Safety Bill. Let's talk a little
bit about that and that committee hearing. I want to
talk a little bit about the parents first. I mean,
you mentioned there's a lot of bravery and of course
a ton of sadness I mean, one of the things
that has stuck with me is the picture that ran
at the top of one of your stories, right where
you you see these families in the in the gallery
(18:04):
and just the pain on their faces. It like, there's
been very few things since those floods that have really
hit me as hard as that. Just how sad and
how much human suffering there is, and how brave it
is to be going out and speaking about this, you know,
when when the pain is so raw. Tell us a
little bit about just what you were hearing from parents,
(18:27):
what lawmakers were hearing from parents in these hearings about,
you know, how they're feeling and what they want to
see coming out of this.
Speaker 5 (18:35):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 4 (18:37):
It's an interesting one because it wasn't a part of
the first special session. These bills kind of came in
more recent weeks as the parents got organized and you know,
really pushed to get this as part of the agenda.
They saw there was like really a gap in kind
of comprehensive legislation. Looking at the camps where several dozen
(18:59):
kids die to can't mistic you know. So, I don't
know what struck me the most from the hearing with
the parents was the details like this dad talking about
the countless hands of go fish and uno he played
with his kid, the many pages of books they read
before he put her to sleep every night, and kind
(19:21):
of like this morning of the futures that their kids
weren't going to get. You know, now we're in fall
almost and it's back to school time, and so parents
were remembering. You know, for one, it was thinking that
their daughter was going to be there to hold the
hand of the other kid as they went to school,
or the daughter who poured the bowl of cheerios for
(19:42):
the younger child so they could get extra sleep, the
daughter who was supposed to be going to college moving
into college right now. So a lot of it was
just kind of this raw emotion of you send your
kid to camp what for many is like a generational experience,
and they think they're going to be having fun riding
(20:03):
horses and shooting archery, and then, you know, one woman said,
I never could I have dreamed that my kid was
going to come home in a in a coffin. So
it was sort of this grappling with guilt, like they
felt like they should have protected their kids in some cases,
and they felt as parents that they let them down,
(20:25):
a grappling with grief and loss of the past and
of the future, and then you know, a very forceful
call basically to say make this right. You know, don't
let any parent be gripped by the trauma that we
are feeling right now.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
And is would you say, the main focus of what
they were asking for, the main focus of sort of
where they were directing there for a lack of a
better term, blame for what happened, was the location of
the cabins in the floodplain. Is that what they're focus
was in terms of trying to enact change by showing
(21:03):
up at these hearings.
Speaker 4 (21:05):
Right, getting cabins out of the floodplane is a big piece.
Also the fact that, as they told the story, the plan,
the emergency plan for the kids was to stay in
the cabin, and several of them expressed the sentiment that
they raise their kids to follow rules and to follow orders,
and in this case doing so got them killed. So
(21:28):
these bills House Built one and Senate Bill one both
have components of requiring the camps to have these emergency
plans for what to do in the case of flooding.
You know, when do you evacuate and when do you
shelter in place? Because different you know, different disasters have
different requirements with them. And the Senate bill goes even
(21:51):
further to say, you know, if there is a flash
flood warning and kids are in the floodplane, you need
to move them out.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
No more.
Speaker 4 (22:00):
Is this going to be a subjective question about whether
and what to do in the case of a warning,
but it will be required under that bill.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
I mean it's so like are the Texas munto a story?
Speaker 2 (22:15):
Looking at how like there was a similar disaster right
in the eighties and people died, children died because they
were evacuating. Like it seems like these camps, you know,
they're built on the water, they're built to like engage
with the with the river and with the water. But
are It's like a damned if you do, damned if
you don't sort of situation in terms of knowing how
(22:35):
to and like putting so much of this on like teenagers,
to know how to respond to get younger kids out
is just like one of those things again like reactive.
But you look back and you think, like who could
have ever let this happen? Who could have ever let
this get to this point.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
Right, And and that's where I think the the you know,
failure of imagination kind of comes in, right of what
could happen and what do we react? How do we
react when it does happen? I mean, you know you,
I'm sort of reading directly from your story here. But
House Bill one, which is the bill that particularly pertains
to camps, would require operators to develop emergency plans, including
(23:14):
for disasters. They would have to be submitted by the state.
They would include information on when to shelter or evacuate,
and you know, campers need to know, like be taught
how to react to that. And then another one I
think is important. We talked a little about this in
the immediate aftermath of just like putting evacuation routes on
the on the doors of the cabins, right of this
(23:36):
is where you go to get to higher ground. Right,
If you're evacuating through a low lying area, that's going
to be dangerous. But if you can identify ahead of
time where you're going to be most safe from floodwaters,
even for a short period of time, that that can
make a big difference.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
And sorry, would any of these bills and if you
said this make it like, like, are we saying like
you just can't put cabins in floodplains anymore?
Speaker 3 (24:00):
I mean, are we going that far?
Speaker 4 (24:03):
Right? The state won't license a camp if they have
a cabin in okay, But the big caveat here is
it's not going to apply to camps that are on lakes,
so that would be you know, a camp like Camp Longhorn.
I think they're they're trying to make this very specifically
for camps that are along rivers, which is something I'm
(24:24):
trying to understand.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
More right, So it's sort of again very reactive. I mean,
I'm also curious how this. Like I was out in
Kerville right after the floods and like obviously like so
much attention correctly on these camps and just like the
horrors of what happened there. But you know, we also
saw like r V parks get washed away. We saw
these like a lot of other development in low lying
(24:46):
areas that also you know are like sometimes vacationers, but
sometimes a lot of people I talk to were like
vulnerable people who had an r V and thewhere else
to live or things like that.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
Does any of this like address that?
Speaker 4 (25:00):
Not that I have seen I mean, you know, insofar
as the emergency response would address how you respond to
emergencies anywhere, but there anytime floodplain regulation has come up
in the hearings. You know, there was a moment I
think it was Senator Menendez who had said, you know,
(25:23):
wouldn't it be better if the kids will let me
back this up. So before the camp bill came up,
the plan was to require camps to evacuate kids from
cabins if they were in the floodplane and if that failed,
require the cabins to have a ladder so the kids
could climb on the roof of the cabin if for
some reason the water started coming and they hadn't evacuated.
(25:46):
And I think it was Senator Menendez who said, you know,
wouldn't it be better for the cabins not to be
there in the first place. And Senator Perry said, you know,
something to the effects of like we're not gonna go
down the road of floodplain regulation, that that has been
discussed in the past, that if we take that up,
you know, all of Houston needs to be redesigned. So
(26:08):
kind of like that's just political resistance has poked up
time and again about looking holistically at floodplains, and I'm
curious to see if that's going to change at all
in the next you know, six months to a year
as they continue to look at this. But it's definitely
sort of the big piece to me is these decisions
(26:31):
about where we build and how we build. But it's
been explained to me it's like Texas is a property
rights state. You know, there's a huge respect for letting
people make choices about how they use their property. So
that seems to be sort of politically what's that play here?
Speaker 1 (26:47):
It right? I mean, I think that's right. It bears
just sort of emphasizing though that what happened at Can't
Mistick was horrible and you know, should steps should be
taken to prevent it. But even if you take Can't
miss It out of the equation, another one hundred and
eleven people died in these floods, and they were not
(27:10):
at camps. They were at like you said, RVs, they
were in cabins, many of them from out of town
presumably had no idea, you know, where the floodplaine was
or anything like that. I mean, it feels to me
like if it were ever going to happen. If the
state were ever going to take steps to you know,
(27:32):
make more rules about what goes on in the floodplane
or what can be built in the floodplane, it would
be right now after you know, over one hundred and
thirty people died. And if we're not doing it now,
Like how how what is the political path of that
happening in twenty twenty seven? I just I just don't
see it.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
No.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
I mean, it's like it's different, right, but it's like
after uv All Day, where it's like, if you're not
going to do gun restrictions now, you're not going to
do it.
Speaker 3 (27:55):
If you're not going to do floodplain restrictions now.
Speaker 5 (27:59):
You know, maybe that's just the way it is in Texas,
But I mean, what about just I mean, you could
require evacuation routes and evacuation processes for airbnbs or hotels
or RV areas.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
I mean, is is there any of that in the legislation?
Speaker 4 (28:16):
Emily, I'm really curious what's going to happen with the
with the siren legislation, because that, I think is where
I've had a lot of conversations around this education component.
You know, experts who study warning systems, say, you can't
just put a siren up and expect that when it blairs,
people are going to know what that means or what
(28:37):
to do. Like if you're from a tornado prone place,
you might stay put, which is exactly what you shouldn't
do if there's a flash flood. So the legislation is
really kind of leaves a lot of the details to
rule making. You know, it's the Texas Water Development Board
that's going to put in place the real specific rules
(28:58):
about what these warning system look like. But I've talked
to people who have said, you know, it could be
that you check in at a hotel or you check
in at your campsite and they pass you a piece
of paper that says, here's the risk you are facing,
and when the siren goes off, here is what to
do and where to go. And so that's kind of
where I will be looking to see what the education
(29:23):
components look like there, because you're right, I mean, some
of this is people who live or have second homes
on the river, but a lot of it is tourism.
Especially because this disaster happened on July fourth, there were
a lot of people there who just may not have known,
you know what flash flaw Daley is what that river
you know that normally looks pretty peaceful, Like the rage
(29:46):
that it can kind of bear down on these locations
is something that could be communicated when you when you
check in.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
Yeah, yeah, I mean I've said this on this podcast before,
but my family, my wife's has family up on the
Oregon coast and you know, there is a constant threat
of tsunami there, including what they call like the Big
one that is, you know, they know, going to wipe
out a ton of property and things like that. And
(30:18):
if when you check in to the Airbnb or wherever
there's a there's there is something on the door, and
there is something telling you where to go, and there's
supply kits you know that are already stationed in high ground,
and there's signs everywhere that's like tsunami evacuation route, follow
these things. It doesn't feel like it would be that
onerous or expensive to require those kinds of disclosures and
(30:40):
things along those lines.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
Yeah, we have so many disasters here, I mean, what
are you gonna do? Like a wildfire warning and a
hurricane warning and the you know, like we've got a
lot of crises to manage, like, yeah, it's a higher
bar here than one tsunami.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
Yeah, Emily, what are you just watching as this plays
out in the coming days, Like what's what do you
think is still sort of at stake or up in
the air or are you curious to see how it
plays out?
Speaker 4 (31:09):
Definitely curious. I mean a lot of these bills have
made it through both chambers and now they're kind of
at this like agreeing on the little changes that are
being made back and forth. So we're kind of just
following to see if some argument appears that you know,
(31:30):
we didn't know about or didn't expect. But yeah, it's
it'll be It'll be interesting to see where it lands.
And then my understanding is these committees, I think at
least one of them, they've said they will keep going
after this. So what those hearings take up, you know,
(31:51):
with a little more breathing room, I think will be important.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
As you said, I mean, if these bills pass sort
of in their like the form they kind of are
now and go into effect, do you feel like, big picture,
we will be more protected from this happening again and
being as horrific as we were before.
Speaker 4 (32:13):
July fourth, I'm like, are you asking me an opinion? Illinois?
Speaker 2 (32:22):
I'll you what you know, I can't have those you've talked,
you have told you.
Speaker 4 (32:29):
I think on many of these bills, experts who follow
these issues have said these are good first steps. Right, No,
we're just going to say that the steps the legislature
is taking are not going to help in some incremental way.
So yes, I think people are seeing some positive change
(32:52):
come out of this. Again, there is an interest in
these big picture issues and big picture conversations that you know,
as I said, in disaster after disaster, it's really really
difficult to get people to take a step back and
like look holistically at the problems. So yes, I think
(33:17):
this should again like kind of pending. There's a lot
of rulemaking that has to happen along this stuff. So
the devil in the details maybe to how successful this
will be, but they definitely took steps to address some problems.
I just think, you know, I guess I should say
this is the climate reporter. The thing that people really
(33:38):
have barely touched on is climate change and how these
disasters are. You know, rain is more likely to be heavier,
wildfire seasons are now longer, so what the state is
facing today is not the same as what the state
faced in the past, so that maybe even puts more
pressure on these big picture questions. But did the state
(34:00):
fix everything? I don't think anyone thinks that is the case.
Did they fix some things, Yes, some people do feel like,
you know, sirens will help in a region without cell
service that's rural, and these emergency problems seem to have
been long standing and they're taking steps, So I think
that's where I would leave that.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
Yeah, I mean, ultimately, what the state is engaging in
right now through is political process is a question whether
they want to frame it this way or not of
how much risk are we going to be comfortable with? Right,
you can't eliminate all risk. You can't eliminate all risk.
And you know, if we didn't want to risk any
kind of like terrible accidents, we wouldn't have streets, and
(34:44):
we wouldn't have cars, and we wouldn't have all those
different types of things. Right, But like, what steps are
we willing to take to intervene in the like free
market and the choices of individuals in order to prevent
them from something like this happening? And how far can
you even go in a world where the climate is
getting warmer, where extreme weather is a reality, to prevent
(35:10):
these things from happening, you know, I think we're not
going to change the political nature of this state where
people like often want to air on the side of
freedom and low regulation and allowing sort of the private
sector to you know, fill the needs and desires of
(35:31):
the people of the state.
Speaker 4 (35:33):
Yeah. I think that's perfectly put. How much risk are
we willing to accept? And another piece of this is
always how much are we willing to pay to lower
that risk?
Speaker 1 (35:42):
Right? Okay, well, thank you Emily for talking this through.
Thank you Eleanor, and thank you to our producers Rob
and Chris. We will be back next week.
Hello, and welcome to the Texas Tribune trip Cast for Tuesday,
August twenty sixth, twenty twenty five. My name is Matthew Watkins,
editor in chief of the Texas Tribune. And you know,
a hunch tells me Eleanor that this could possibly be
our last trib cast recorded of twenty twenty five, that is,
(00:42):
during a legislative session.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
I cannot believe you would say that and curse us
like this. I just want you to know that, like,
come Christmas, when we're still doing this, I will pull
back this quote and throw this in your face. Let's say,
I hope greatly that this is the last trip cast
we are doing during a special session.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
This, of course, is because lawmakers have passed the maps,
three districting maps, the topic of the trip cast for
the past to maybe three weeks, in the middle of
the night Saturday morning, Friday night, staving off a Democratic filibuster,
which you know, we can talk about the rules, we
(01:27):
can talk about all that, but I think those of
us who were expecting to have to work through the
weekend were greatly relieved about.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Some of us who were so this is funny. Actually,
I was on the was supposed to be on the
five am to nine am filibuster shift, and I went
to bed. My whole plan right was like, go to
bed at nine pm on Friday night because I have
to be up at five am. So at midnight I
go to bed. I went to bed.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
I'm not joking.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
What must have been three minutes before they said you
cannot fill a Buster still woke up at four forty
five am, saw that they had designed out Philbuster, went
back to sleep, and then woke up at nine am like,
oh god, I hope that wasn't a dream. And I
didn't go back to sleep, and everyone's like, where is
Eleanor anyway? So the timing was terrible, but the you know,
(02:15):
my sleep debt appreciated it.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Well, I'm glad you were able to go back to sleep.
I've reached the age of my life where if I
wake up, I'm it's it's over for me.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
Yeah, four forty five is pretty like I can get back.
I can get back to sleep. I can make it happen.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Yeah, okay, very good that voice.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
Of course.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Eleanor klivanoff law and politics reporter for the Text Tribune.
I will eventually get that correct.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
You'll create a editor in chief.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
Yes, yes, I love that you think I actually have
that much power and it's.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Not I did cook up the name myself.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Yeah, yeah, that's very good. We are joined this week
by climate reporter I do. I got that one easily,
Emily fox Hall, joining us from what is not ary
Potter closet in Houston.
Speaker 4 (03:02):
Hello, Emily, Hi, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
So Yeah, we, like I said, we I'm going to
finish my thought here. The maps have passed. They are
on their way to governor rabbits desk. Now, we have
a text legislature that is very tired, that is very
sick of being in Austin.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
Very angry with each other.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Very angry with each other. And I think, you know,
we got a three day weekend coming up. I think
they're going to want to try to get this done
and move on and and and and finish their work
for the year.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
Is what Dustin Burrough said. We're going to get this
thing done by Labor Day.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
And so the other big priority left.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
To do is flooding, which is why Emily is here.
Emily has been watching very long and emotional committee hearings
over this measure, over over you know, response to the floods.
She has been writing about the various legislative responses to
(04:05):
those floods, and that is what we are going to
talk about today, Emily, I want to start by just
you know, I think you know, committee hearings are often
dry affairs. You know, you get a few bills a
year that have the kind of emotional kind of testimony
that happens. This one was a particular one. We saw families,
(04:29):
particularly from Camp Mystic, coming and talking to lawmakers. Lawmakers
being I think like pretty blunt and frank and sometimes
even kind of apologizing for their own kind of mistakes
and past things that happen. Can you just kind of
tell us a little bit about what you've seen, particularly
from those hearings in recent days and weeks, as lawmakers
(04:50):
come together and try to, you know, prevent something like
this from happening again.
Speaker 4 (04:55):
They have been definitely very emotional. It's interesting just thinking back,
I feel like so much has happened. It's almost been
two months since the floods, so it's really felt like
a whirlwind of these hearings. But if we go back
to the start, there were special committees at appointed in
both the House and the Senate to look at flooding
issues and disaster issues, and the first sort of like
(05:18):
marathon hearing they held together was really focused on the
disaster response. So nim Kid was kind of like the
star of the show that day.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
He's the head of emergency management for the state. Good yeah,
thank you.
Speaker 4 (05:35):
He just sort of went through like a litany of issues.
It was like almost overwhelming how many things had gone wrong.
So just to give you a few examples, he went
over how emergency management coordinators who can help county judges
or mayors in emergencies, they don't have any licensing requirements
(05:56):
in the state. He also went through a bunch of
problems that happened with you know, so many people died
in this disaster that the Justices of the peace and
the medical examiners who came into help sounded like they
had some issues keeping first deciding when autopsies were really needed,
and then second, just like managing so many bodies, like
(06:22):
multiple family members from within the same family died and
the bodies got sent to different places, which made it
harder on the families trying to recover. So anyway, all
to say, you know, that first hearing was sort of
like you could see lawmakers getting frustrated with these sort
of repeat problems and that. Yeah, so that kind of
(06:45):
culminated in later that day some discussion two of the
local river authority not pursuing grand funding, and there was
sort of an outburst by lawmakers at that moment too,
at the end of what had already been a really
long day with a lot of issues over frustration with
you know, they had an opportunity, in the lawmaker's view,
(07:06):
to put these sirens up and didn't move ahead with it.
So we went from that all the way to more
recently when the Camp Mystic family spoke, and as you mentioned,
it was just hugely emotional with people walking through, you know,
the grief of losing children, kind of being haunted by
these nightmares of imagining what those last minutes were like
(07:30):
for these little girls as the floodwaters rose while they
were in their cabins. And I also was just struck
in that hearing by not only the grief but also
like the strength these parents were really pushing for change
(07:51):
and not asking anyone, you know, to like feel sorry
for them, but asking for these bills to make camp safer.
So it was both very sad but also a very
like admirable effort. You know, they were really focused on
making change in that one, and you could see lawmakers
(08:13):
you know again kind of these frustration with errors that
have sort of long been known as problems in this state.
But also many of them were moved, you know, lawmakers
removed tears. So it was certainly a heavy feeling watching those.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Yeah, I want I want to go back to the
first part. I think we should talk about the camp
mistic families and everything there. But going back to your
first kind of statement, I mean, something that has stood
out to me from the beginning here was the sort
of lack of professional expectations for these particularly like more
(08:50):
rural small town officials, whether that's you know, the emergency
management coordinators or you know, people going out for jogs
in the middle of the night when like flooding has
already started and everything like that. In some ways, maybe
it almost felt like, uh, you know, underresourced local governments
(09:12):
not fully comprehending the scope of their responsibilities or what
needed to be done in order to keep their constituents
or people visiting their communities safe. I'm curious, you know
you heard all that, you heard that frustration from nim Kid,
who of course is a professional and who has dealt
(09:33):
with you know, if not dozens, then at probably at
least a dozen like major catastrophes in the state for
a long time. But you know, he can't be deploying
everywhere across the state every moment everything comes up. They're
you know, usually coming in after the terrible thing has
already happened. I mean, did you since any kind of
(09:57):
effort or intention by lawmaker to kind of change that
in terms of giving those local entities the infrastructure needed,
training needed, or whatever else it is to make them
be more prepared for future events like this.
Speaker 4 (10:15):
That's definitely a big piece of the problem. I spoke
to one expert early on who said, the state Emergency
Department really has like relatively a good reputation in the country,
and as you said, they are professional, they're somewhat well funded.
And so this woman was telling me often these local
governments can get kind of lost that people don't realize
(10:36):
just how much the local governments are struggling in disasters
because the state comes in so quickly. But in this case,
you know, the disaster really happened over a matter of hours.
They call it flash flooding for a reason, and so
you see the gaps in the local response very clearly
in this case. The one hearing we didn't talk about
(10:57):
was the one that was in Kirk County that was
you know, sort of like a mounting sense of anger
with the way the local authorities, you know, essentially just
weren't awake. The county judge who's supposed to be responsible
for emergency scenarios was asleep at another home, you know,
(11:18):
at a lake home that they have, and the county
emergency management coordinator was sick and also asleep as these
floodwaters were rising. So that's clearly been established as part
of the issue here. But the changes the lawmakers have
made is to put in now they're going to have
(11:39):
licensing requirements under these proposed bills for emergency management coordinators,
so that will come with some training, and they're trying
to put in place kind of like a chain of
command where if the county judge isn't awake or the
emergency management isn't awake, here's who the responsibility will fall to.
(12:00):
I remember hearing though, it's like if you're going to
train the emergency management coordinator, like there seem to be
some questions about who in the chain of command is
actually going to get the training right, Like if you
go down the chain and that person doesn't understand what's
going on, that feels like a gap I've been interested in.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
But like I.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Assume like most of these people, like you know, you
go decades, maybe your entire career as like a county judge,
and you never have a disaster like this, right, So,
like I understand sort of on a human level, how
easy it is to get kind of complacent and to
think like, yeah, I'm the guy that like if there's
a disaster, they will call, But like that doesn't mean
I can never go to my friend's lake house and
(12:41):
then this happens and you think like oh shit, basically,
and so like it is it's interesting to me that
they like didn't have a chain of command of like
you know, I bet there were a lot of counties
out there that weren't affected by flooding that now were
like whose job was, Like if this was us, whose
job is this?
Speaker 3 (12:57):
And like it's interesting they're going to put that in
place now.
Speaker 4 (13:01):
And there's so many compounding issues with this, right, I Mean,
there's these questions of like do people understand the difference
between a flood watch and a flood warning?
Speaker 3 (13:12):
No, thank you.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
We've talked about that on this song here with Yeah,
like right after it's like, I think it's one of
those things like, you know, the weather people vastly overestimate
how much people can keep that straight in their brains.
Speaker 4 (13:25):
Yeah, yeah, And then these problems of just warning fatigue,
like maybe some of these officials or some people who
were visiting saw the watch, but they didn't you know,
take action or necessarily prepare for it, because so many
times we get these watches and nothing, nothing happens.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
How much is this response, particularly around emergency response. You've
written about a few different bills, Centate Bill two, which
I think pertains more to the justices of peace and
how to handle the bodies that you already mentioned, the
training program for them, Housepeled three creating a Texas inter
Operability Council to kind of help develop strategic plans and
communication and everything like that. Some other bills related to
(14:09):
that as well. How much of this response, particularly around
emergency preparedness for local governments, is addressing what Eleanor just
talked about, where it's like sure in Kerr County. There's
a flood, and you could be worried about that, but
you know, in the Panhandle or on the Gulf Coast
or you know, it's it could be something that we're
(14:32):
not already talking about anymore. Like, do you think that
the actions that are being taken by this legislature in
response to this are going to help the next thing
that comes along that we're not talking about right now,
a flood?
Speaker 3 (14:44):
Right?
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (14:45):
Yeah, a lot of the legislation looks really reactive to me.
You know, the bills that you mentioned SB two with
the trainings and the dealing with the bodies, a lot
of that just came straight out of the hearing from
what nim Kid told lawmakers was a problem. The other
big piece of legislation we haven't mentioned yet was SB three,
(15:08):
which is the bill that's going to require sirens in
certain parts of the Hill Country, and that's very focused
on this area where the disaster occurred. You know, it's
focused on flash flood Alley specifically, and we'll set aside
if it passes, some money to fund these required siren
and early notification systems. So yeah, I think this point
(15:32):
you raise is something I've been thinking a lot about
the last two months. Because you all know I live
in Houston. I've covered so many hurricanes. Sometimes as a reporter,
I feel like I'm just going from one disaster to
the next, and you see kind of this cycle, right,
It's like this grief and mourning and shock at what happened.
(15:54):
There's this immediate reaction to trying to fix the very
specific problem, and then there's this recovery which we try
to pay attention to, but often we are just moving
on to the next thing. So I think I'm certainly
hoping to do some more reporting looking at how there
are opportunities. The state has had to be more forward looking,
(16:15):
and a big part of this legislation so far that
I've seen is pretty reactive to this specific issue. But
there's certainly things that I think they expect to help
make emergency response better. There's some measures in the camp
safety bills that the Mystic Parents have pushed that will
(16:36):
make camps, you know, trying to get cabins out of
the floodplane will help keep people out of harm's way
in the future. And there is some money that's being
set aside to improve weather forecasting, you know, so a
lot of environmental groups have really supported that one as
a pretty forward looking at a bill. But of course
you're right, every disaster is different, every part of the
(16:58):
state faces different disasters, and you know, kind of like
these big discussions, for example, on what flood plain development
should look like, those really haven't happened that I've heard
in these meetings so far.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
Because it is interesting that like the bill that I
think got a lot of spotlight that didn't pass during
the regular session was actually was being carried by Ken
King in part because as a response to the Panhandle wildfires.
And it's like, you know, I mean, there's obvious a
lot of discussion about whether or not that well, actually, I think
it's clear that that would not have been in place
in time to.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
Help with this.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
But it's like, like you said, we're just moving from
like one disaster to the next of like wildfire response,
Like then the windows between them are becoming narrower and narrower.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
You mentioned the camp Safety Bill. Let's talk a little
bit about that and that committee hearing. I want to
talk a little bit about the parents first. I mean,
you mentioned there's a lot of bravery and of course
a ton of sadness I mean, one of the things
that has stuck with me is the picture that ran
at the top of one of your stories, right where
you you see these families in the in the gallery
(18:04):
and just the pain on their faces. It like, there's
been very few things since those floods that have really
hit me as hard as that. Just how sad and
how much human suffering there is, and how brave it
is to be going out and speaking about this, you know,
when when the pain is so raw. Tell us a
little bit about just what you were hearing from parents,
(18:27):
what lawmakers were hearing from parents in these hearings about,
you know, how they're feeling and what they want to
see coming out of this.
Speaker 5 (18:35):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 4 (18:37):
It's an interesting one because it wasn't a part of
the first special session. These bills kind of came in
more recent weeks as the parents got organized and you know,
really pushed to get this as part of the agenda.
They saw there was like really a gap in kind
of comprehensive legislation. Looking at the camps where several dozen
(18:59):
kids die to can't mistic you know. So, I don't
know what struck me the most from the hearing with
the parents was the details like this dad talking about
the countless hands of go fish and uno he played
with his kid, the many pages of books they read
before he put her to sleep every night, and kind
(19:21):
of like this morning of the futures that their kids
weren't going to get. You know, now we're in fall
almost and it's back to school time, and so parents
were remembering. You know, for one, it was thinking that
their daughter was going to be there to hold the
hand of the other kid as they went to school,
or the daughter who poured the bowl of cheerios for
(19:42):
the younger child so they could get extra sleep, the
daughter who was supposed to be going to college moving
into college right now. So a lot of it was
just kind of this raw emotion of you send your
kid to camp what for many is like a generational experience,
and they think they're going to be having fun riding
(20:03):
horses and shooting archery, and then, you know, one woman said,
I never could I have dreamed that my kid was
going to come home in a in a coffin. So
it was sort of this grappling with guilt, like they
felt like they should have protected their kids in some cases,
and they felt as parents that they let them down,
(20:25):
a grappling with grief and loss of the past and
of the future, and then you know, a very forceful
call basically to say make this right. You know, don't
let any parent be gripped by the trauma that we
are feeling right now.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
And is would you say, the main focus of what
they were asking for, the main focus of sort of
where they were directing there for a lack of a
better term, blame for what happened, was the location of
the cabins in the floodplain. Is that what they're focus
was in terms of trying to enact change by showing
(21:03):
up at these hearings.
Speaker 4 (21:05):
Right, getting cabins out of the floodplane is a big piece.
Also the fact that, as they told the story, the plan,
the emergency plan for the kids was to stay in
the cabin, and several of them expressed the sentiment that
they raise their kids to follow rules and to follow orders,
and in this case doing so got them killed. So
(21:28):
these bills House Built one and Senate Bill one both
have components of requiring the camps to have these emergency
plans for what to do in the case of flooding.
You know, when do you evacuate and when do you
shelter in place? Because different you know, different disasters have
different requirements with them. And the Senate bill goes even
(21:51):
further to say, you know, if there is a flash
flood warning and kids are in the floodplane, you need
to move them out.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
No more.
Speaker 4 (22:00):
Is this going to be a subjective question about whether
and what to do in the case of a warning,
but it will be required under that bill.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
I mean it's so like are the Texas munto a story?
Speaker 2 (22:15):
Looking at how like there was a similar disaster right
in the eighties and people died, children died because they
were evacuating. Like it seems like these camps, you know,
they're built on the water, they're built to like engage
with the with the river and with the water. But
are It's like a damned if you do, damned if
you don't sort of situation in terms of knowing how
(22:35):
to and like putting so much of this on like teenagers,
to know how to respond to get younger kids out
is just like one of those things again like reactive.
But you look back and you think, like who could
have ever let this happen? Who could have ever let
this get to this point.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
Right, And and that's where I think the the you know,
failure of imagination kind of comes in, right of what
could happen and what do we react? How do we
react when it does happen? I mean, you know you,
I'm sort of reading directly from your story here. But
House Bill one, which is the bill that particularly pertains
to camps, would require operators to develop emergency plans, including
(23:14):
for disasters. They would have to be submitted by the state.
They would include information on when to shelter or evacuate,
and you know, campers need to know, like be taught
how to react to that. And then another one I
think is important. We talked a little about this in
the immediate aftermath of just like putting evacuation routes on
the on the doors of the cabins, right of this
(23:36):
is where you go to get to higher ground. Right,
If you're evacuating through a low lying area, that's going
to be dangerous. But if you can identify ahead of
time where you're going to be most safe from floodwaters,
even for a short period of time, that that can
make a big difference.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
And sorry, would any of these bills and if you
said this make it like, like, are we saying like
you just can't put cabins in floodplains anymore?
Speaker 3 (24:00):
I mean, are we going that far?
Speaker 4 (24:03):
Right? The state won't license a camp if they have
a cabin in okay, But the big caveat here is
it's not going to apply to camps that are on lakes,
so that would be you know, a camp like Camp Longhorn.
I think they're they're trying to make this very specifically
for camps that are along rivers, which is something I'm
(24:24):
trying to understand.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
More right, So it's sort of again very reactive. I mean,
I'm also curious how this. Like I was out in
Kerville right after the floods and like obviously like so
much attention correctly on these camps and just like the
horrors of what happened there. But you know, we also
saw like r V parks get washed away. We saw
these like a lot of other development in low lying
(24:46):
areas that also you know are like sometimes vacationers, but
sometimes a lot of people I talk to were like
vulnerable people who had an r V and thewhere else
to live or things like that.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
Does any of this like address that?
Speaker 4 (25:00):
Not that I have seen I mean, you know, insofar
as the emergency response would address how you respond to
emergencies anywhere, but there anytime floodplain regulation has come up
in the hearings. You know, there was a moment I
think it was Senator Menendez who had said, you know,
(25:23):
wouldn't it be better if the kids will let me
back this up. So before the camp bill came up,
the plan was to require camps to evacuate kids from
cabins if they were in the floodplane and if that failed,
require the cabins to have a ladder so the kids
could climb on the roof of the cabin if for
some reason the water started coming and they hadn't evacuated.
(25:46):
And I think it was Senator Menendez who said, you know,
wouldn't it be better for the cabins not to be
there in the first place. And Senator Perry said, you know,
something to the effects of like we're not gonna go
down the road of floodplain regulation, that that has been
discussed in the past, that if we take that up,
you know, all of Houston needs to be redesigned. So
(26:08):
kind of like that's just political resistance has poked up
time and again about looking holistically at floodplains, and I'm
curious to see if that's going to change at all
in the next you know, six months to a year
as they continue to look at this. But it's definitely
sort of the big piece to me is these decisions
(26:31):
about where we build and how we build. But it's
been explained to me it's like Texas is a property
rights state. You know, there's a huge respect for letting
people make choices about how they use their property. So
that seems to be sort of politically what's that play here?
Speaker 1 (26:47):
It right? I mean, I think that's right. It bears
just sort of emphasizing though that what happened at Can't
Mistick was horrible and you know, should steps should be
taken to prevent it. But even if you take Can't
miss It out of the equation, another one hundred and
eleven people died in these floods, and they were not
(27:10):
at camps. They were at like you said, RVs, they
were in cabins, many of them from out of town
presumably had no idea, you know, where the floodplaine was
or anything like that. I mean, it feels to me
like if it were ever going to happen. If the
state were ever going to take steps to you know,
(27:32):
make more rules about what goes on in the floodplane
or what can be built in the floodplane, it would
be right now after you know, over one hundred and
thirty people died. And if we're not doing it now,
Like how how what is the political path of that
happening in twenty twenty seven? I just I just don't
see it.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
No.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
I mean, it's like it's different, right, but it's like
after uv All Day, where it's like, if you're not
going to do gun restrictions now, you're not going to
do it.
Speaker 3 (27:55):
If you're not going to do floodplain restrictions now.
Speaker 5 (27:59):
You know, maybe that's just the way it is in Texas,
But I mean, what about just I mean, you could
require evacuation routes and evacuation processes for airbnbs or hotels
or RV areas.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
I mean, is is there any of that in the legislation?
Speaker 4 (28:16):
Emily, I'm really curious what's going to happen with the
with the siren legislation, because that, I think is where
I've had a lot of conversations around this education component.
You know, experts who study warning systems, say, you can't
just put a siren up and expect that when it blairs,
people are going to know what that means or what
(28:37):
to do. Like if you're from a tornado prone place,
you might stay put, which is exactly what you shouldn't
do if there's a flash flood. So the legislation is
really kind of leaves a lot of the details to
rule making. You know, it's the Texas Water Development Board
that's going to put in place the real specific rules
(28:58):
about what these warning system look like. But I've talked
to people who have said, you know, it could be
that you check in at a hotel or you check
in at your campsite and they pass you a piece
of paper that says, here's the risk you are facing,
and when the siren goes off, here is what to
do and where to go. And so that's kind of
where I will be looking to see what the education
(29:23):
components look like there, because you're right, I mean, some
of this is people who live or have second homes
on the river, but a lot of it is tourism.
Especially because this disaster happened on July fourth, there were
a lot of people there who just may not have known,
you know what flash flaw Daley is what that river
you know that normally looks pretty peaceful, Like the rage
(29:46):
that it can kind of bear down on these locations
is something that could be communicated when you when you
check in.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
Yeah, yeah, I mean I've said this on this podcast before,
but my family, my wife's has family up on the
Oregon coast and you know, there is a constant threat
of tsunami there, including what they call like the Big
one that is, you know, they know, going to wipe
out a ton of property and things like that. And
(30:18):
if when you check in to the Airbnb or wherever
there's a there's there is something on the door, and
there is something telling you where to go, and there's
supply kits you know that are already stationed in high ground,
and there's signs everywhere that's like tsunami evacuation route, follow
these things. It doesn't feel like it would be that
onerous or expensive to require those kinds of disclosures and
(30:40):
things along those lines.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
Yeah, we have so many disasters here, I mean, what
are you gonna do? Like a wildfire warning and a
hurricane warning and the you know, like we've got a
lot of crises to manage, like, yeah, it's a higher
bar here than one tsunami.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
Yeah, Emily, what are you just watching as this plays
out in the coming days, Like what's what do you
think is still sort of at stake or up in
the air or are you curious to see how it
plays out?
Speaker 4 (31:09):
Definitely curious. I mean a lot of these bills have
made it through both chambers and now they're kind of
at this like agreeing on the little changes that are
being made back and forth. So we're kind of just
following to see if some argument appears that you know,
(31:30):
we didn't know about or didn't expect. But yeah, it's
it'll be It'll be interesting to see where it lands.
And then my understanding is these committees, I think at
least one of them, they've said they will keep going
after this. So what those hearings take up, you know,
(31:51):
with a little more breathing room, I think will be important.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
As you said, I mean, if these bills pass sort
of in their like the form they kind of are
now and go into effect, do you feel like, big picture,
we will be more protected from this happening again and
being as horrific as we were before.
Speaker 4 (32:13):
July fourth, I'm like, are you asking me an opinion? Illinois?
Speaker 2 (32:22):
I'll you what you know, I can't have those you've talked,
you have told you.
Speaker 4 (32:29):
I think on many of these bills, experts who follow
these issues have said these are good first steps. Right, No,
we're just going to say that the steps the legislature
is taking are not going to help in some incremental way.
So yes, I think people are seeing some positive change
(32:52):
come out of this. Again, there is an interest in
these big picture issues and big picture conversations that you know,
as I said, in disaster after disaster, it's really really
difficult to get people to take a step back and
like look holistically at the problems. So yes, I think
(33:17):
this should again like kind of pending. There's a lot
of rulemaking that has to happen along this stuff. So
the devil in the details maybe to how successful this
will be, but they definitely took steps to address some problems.
I just think, you know, I guess I should say
this is the climate reporter. The thing that people really
(33:38):
have barely touched on is climate change and how these
disasters are. You know, rain is more likely to be heavier,
wildfire seasons are now longer, so what the state is
facing today is not the same as what the state
faced in the past, so that maybe even puts more
pressure on these big picture questions. But did the state
(34:00):
fix everything? I don't think anyone thinks that is the case.
Did they fix some things, Yes, some people do feel like,
you know, sirens will help in a region without cell
service that's rural, and these emergency problems seem to have
been long standing and they're taking steps, So I think
that's where I would leave that.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
Yeah, I mean, ultimately, what the state is engaging in
right now through is political process is a question whether
they want to frame it this way or not of
how much risk are we going to be comfortable with? Right,
you can't eliminate all risk. You can't eliminate all risk.
And you know, if we didn't want to risk any
kind of like terrible accidents, we wouldn't have streets, and
(34:44):
we wouldn't have cars, and we wouldn't have all those
different types of things. Right, But like, what steps are
we willing to take to intervene in the like free
market and the choices of individuals in order to prevent
them from something like this happening? And how far can
you even go in a world where the climate is
getting warmer, where extreme weather is a reality, to prevent
(35:10):
these things from happening, you know, I think we're not
going to change the political nature of this state where
people like often want to air on the side of
freedom and low regulation and allowing sort of the private
sector to you know, fill the needs and desires of
(35:31):
the people of the state.
Speaker 4 (35:33):
Yeah. I think that's perfectly put. How much risk are
we willing to accept? And another piece of this is
always how much are we willing to pay to lower
that risk?
Speaker 1 (35:42):
Right? Okay, well, thank you Emily for talking this through.
Thank you Eleanor, and thank you to our producers Rob
and Chris. We will be back next week.
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