Lawmakers look to require warning sirens, camp evacuations

AUSTIN (KXAN) -- In response to the deadly July 4 flooding, lawmakers are now looking to require outdoor warning sirens in flood-prone areas. The Upper Guadalupe River Authority, which oversees the river in Kerr County, could also face new scrutiny. And, camps would be forced to evacuate when a flash flood warning is issued.

The Senate Select Committee on Disaster Preparedness and Flooding is set to hear testimony Friday on four bills related to the flood, which killed at least 117 people in Kerr County, including 27 campers and counselors at Camp Mystic. 

Under Senate Bill 2, local counties would be required to install, maintain and operate "one or more" sirens. A grant program would be established to help cover costs. The bill's author, Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, previously told KXAN investigators he wanted to go back to "old technology" because mobile alerts have become "too overloaded."

“You want to try to get as many chances to get the public’s attention that trouble is on the way,” Bettencourt told us a month ago.

Another proposal, Senate Bill 1, would subject the UGRA to a limited Sunset review in 2027. At the July 31 special hearing in Kerrville, the UGRA came under fire after its director, Dr. William Rector, who is appointed by the governor, told lawmakers flood sirens were never installed — and its eight property-tax funded river gauges aren’t locally monitored — with data instead collected by the National Weather Service.

“I would say that you should be in the business of protecting people from the things that are going on in the river,” said Sen. Donna Campbell, R-New Braunfels. “I don’t see how the Upper Guadalupe River Authority helped in any way in this flood.”

Lawmakers questioned what had been done since the UGRA was created in 1939.

Under the SB 1 bill, filed by the committee chair, Sen. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock, the UGRA would face new scrutiny over the way it's governed, how it responded to and prepared for natural disasters, its operating structure and if it complies with legislative requirements.

Other proposals listed in the bill include:

• Campgrounds located within a floodplain must have emergency ladders to access cabin roofs, develop emergency evacuation plans and implement them when the National Weather Service issues a flash flood warning for that area.
• If a disaster is imminent or recently occurred and the designated emergency management director is unavailable, that job would fall to the sheriff or county commissioner with the longest period of continuous service on the commissioners court. In cities, it would fall to the mayor pro tempore.
• Emergency management coordinators must be licensed and complete at least 40 hours of training.
• Establishes a statewide volunteer management system to credential and deploy volunteers and conduct criminal background checks.
• Establish a mass fatality data management system capable of providing real-time status updates and notifications for close relatives of a victim of a mass fatality, track chain-of-custody for dead bodies and store autopsy reports.

This week, lawmakers heard testimony on other other bills related to the flooding, including one that would require camps submit annual flood disaster plans or face fines.