Disaster Preparedness and Flooding Committee meets for the first time, hearing from state officials

AUSTIN, Texas (KWTX) - In response to the deadly floods in the Hill Country, lawmakers from both the House and Senate formed the Disaster Preparedness and Flooding Committee.

This morning the committee, which is made up of 9 Representatives and 9 Senators, began gathering information from state officials about the deadly July 4th floods.

Over the next few weeks they will use this information to look at prep and recovery from natural disasters, improvement of flood emergency warnings, and relief funding for the Hill Country.

“I’m hearing from the old-timers, this is a 500 plus year event,” said Senator Charles Perry, the chairman of this committee.

He says that after at least 137 people died in these devastating floods, they want to make sure something like this never happens again.

“The goal of our committee is to find constructive, positive solutions which will prevent future loss of life like what our state has suffered over the past few weeks,” Senator Perry said.

During today’s hearing they first heard testimony from Nim Kidd, the Chief of the Texas Division of Emergency Management… who shed light on what they were looking at on July 3rd.

“The area of concern that we were looking at was 35 thousand square miles across Texas,” Kidd explained, “let me put that in perspective… that’s the state of Indiana”.

Meaning that their resources were stretched thin leading up to this tragedy.

“Our agency is very small and I look forward to future conversations about things that we need to continue to support our great state,” he said.

Kidd also encouraged lawmakers to look at improving communication systems across the state, as well as the response for mass casualty events like this.

The committee then heard from Colonel Freeman Martin with DPS, who shared what they saw in the Hill Country and the struggles local officials faced.

“The locals were in charge and they’re very competent,” Martin explained, “they’re understaffed, they’re underfunded, and they needed experts”.

Colonel Ron VanderRoest for Texas Parks and Wildlife emphasized this, sharing with lawmakers the need for new legislation that addresses this.

“You have qualified responders on scene, but you have a gap between who needs the help and where does that help need to get and how do you get those people to it,” he shared.

With so much to consider, Representative Ann Johnson and other lawmakers say there might not be a bill passed during the special session.

“There are evaluations that are going to come out from all these hearings that we will hopefully look at in the next legislative session that are big issues, and hopefully we do what we can now in this 30 day window,” Representative Johnson said.

This is the first of two, with the second one set for July 31st in Kerrville, where they will hear from local officials and residents directly impacted by the flooding.