Abbott Left Texans Exposed To A Second Year Of Floods

TEXAS — One year after floodwaters killed more than 100 people along the Guadalupe River, the same river—along with others—rose again this week, and the same gaps Governor Greg Abbott promised to close were still open when it did.

"Greg Abbott had a year to make Texans safer, and he spent it defending FEMA cuts instead of building the disaster fund survivors begged him for," said Sabotaging Our Safety Advisory Council member Derrick Osobase. "Now the same families who lost everything last July are watching the same rivers rise over the same gaps in the ground."

Abbott called a special legislative session after last year's floods and lawmakers passed funding for sirens across the Hill Country. But by this week, theTexas Water Development Board still hadn't finished reviewing Kerr County's siren plan, which the river authority didn't submit until June 12, more than eleven months after the disaster that made it necessary. Twenty-eight counties are eligible for the same state funding. When sirens did go up in time, private investors covered most of the cost: $750,000 for 104 River Sentry towers along the Guadalupe. 

InZavala County's Batesville, where more than half the town went underwater, there was no warning system of any kind.

Abbott's failure to finish the state fix came as he spent the year pushing to gut the federal backstop Texans still rely on. Abbott sat on Trump's FEMA Review Council, which released a report recommending capping individual disaster assistance at $150,000, raising the threshold for federal disaster declarations, and ending FEMA's role in long-term housing recovery. Abbott's office defended the recommendations rather than walk them back, even afterState Rep. Jon Rosenthal, D-Houston, formally asked him to withdraw support in May.

Cutting FEMA didn't come with a Texas-sized backstop. Disaster survivors organized under theFund Texas Forever campaign have spent nearly a year demanding Abbott use his executive authority to create a permanent $500 million Texas Forever Fund out of the state's $24 billion surplus. Abbott has never committed to it. 

Abbott can still change course: establish the Texas Forever Fund now, withdraw Texas's support for the FEMA Review Council's report, and finish the statewide warning system the Legislature funded a year ago, instead of waiting for the next flood to make the case for him.

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