ICYMI: Texas Flood Survivors and Leaders Speak Out On Need For National, State, and Local Investments In Flood Infrastructure One Year After Central Texas Floods
In the Houston Chronicle, flood survivor Brandy Gerstner and Rep. Charlene Ward Johnson call on leaders at every level of government to fund the recovery and warning systems Texans are still waiting for
TEXAS — One year after the July 4, 2025 floods, two op-eds in the Houston Chronicle deliver the same message: survivors are still waiting on recovery, and every level of government, from the Trump administration to Governor Abbott to county officials, has failed to build the systems that would protect the next family from disaster.
Brandy Gerstner, whose family farmed the Sandy Creek community in Travis County for 36 years before the flood took it, describes the night a wall of water lifted her home off its foundation and swept her sister nearly two miles downstream. A year later, Gerstner writes, families in her community are still living in campers parked on the slabs where their houses stood. Against $18 to $22 billion in total damage, only a fraction of individual assistance has been approved.
"The system meant to catch us is being hollowed out, not strengthened," Gerstner writes.
Gerstner names the failure at each level: a FEMA Review Council that Governor Abbott sits on recommending the federal government take responsibility for fewer disasters, a Texas Forever Fund the Governor has yet to enact, and a Travis County government that used a disaster declaration to raise taxes on survivors while roads and bridges are only now being patched together.
To read Brandy Gerstner’s full op-ed, click here.
Meanwhile, Texas State Rep. Charlene Ward Johnson (D-Houston) wrote that FEMA still isn't ready for the next disaster – which could be upon us any day now. The Trump administration has cut FEMA's workforce from 29,000 to 23,000, churned through four administrators, and under Abbott, Texas has left $225 million in federal mitigation grants on the table over the past decade.
"What we saw last summer was a failure of leadership, and the problem has not been fixed. In fact, it has only gotten worse under Donald Trump’s FEMA and Gov. Greg Abbott's recommendations…When catastrophe strikes Texas, federal support is a lifeline. That lifeline is being cut," Ward Johnson writes.
Ward Johnson notes the Urban Institute found that under the administration's proposed changes, 71% of declared disasters from 2008 to 2024 would have been ineligible for federal aid, shifting $41 billion to states. “Because Texas must balance its budget, a major disaster without federal help could mean cuts to schools, Medicaid and roads,” she added.
To read Texas State Rep. Charlene Ward Johnson’s full op-ed, click here.
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