They Let Texas Drown
A preventable tragedy, sabotaged by neglect.
Note: Yeah, I know. I said in the morning. The video clipper broke last night and foiled my timeline. My old boss used to tell me to under-promise and over-deliver, but obviously that lesson never stuck with me. Redistricting hearings begin today. The video clipper is now fixed, so I’ll be uploading clips to social media today. You’ll hear from me again (I’m not saying when, a few hours, tonight, the morning, soon…I’m under-promising 😉).
Since the video clipper was broken last night, I wasn’t able to get the clips I wanted. However, if I get some time in the next week, I will go back and retrieve them for social media. However, I wanted to ensure that I shared with you all what we learned from the 12-hour hearing yesterday. And it was a lot.
No warning was sent out at the local level.
Chief of the Texas Division of Emergency Management W. Nim Kidd testified about the increasingly concerning language used by the National Weather Service in the days leading up to the flood. He said that’s why the state started pooling resources in the Hill Country on July 2. But when the flood came, there was no evacuation order.
Kidd said that the evacuation orders fall under the authority of county and city leaders, and he didn’t even have a reliable way to contact them.
One of the biggest failures of this disaster stemmed from the city and county levels, as they failed to warn people along the river that a flood was approaching.
Kidd had several policy recommendations based on some of the failures he saw on the ground in the aftermath:
Volunteer Management Reform
Codify Mass Fatality Management
Improve Interoperable Communications
Credentialing for Emergency Management Coordinators
Agency Funding and Support
I don’t know if that would have saved the 135 lives that were lost, but Kidd made it clear that in this disaster, there was no structure, no accountability, no coordination, and no professionalism in the disaster response.
The River Authority abandoned plans for a flood warning system.
This particular testimony was difficult to watch, and both Republican and Democratic lawmakers took the River Authority representative through the ringer. The Upper Guadalupe River Authority abandoned plans to install a flood warning system due to a low state match on funding, despite having a $3.4 million reserve.
These flood warning systems, which they didn’t purchase, could have saved lives, but instead, the River Authority decided to invest in a dashboard for their internal systems. It should be noted that Republican Governor Greg Abbott appoints the Upper Guadalupe River Authority Board of Directors.
We Still Don’t Have a Statewide Radio System. Why? Ask the Republicans.
Let’s talk about radios for a second. You know, those things we all assumed first responders could use to talk to each other during a mass-casualty flood? Yeah, turns out they can’t. At least not in Texas.
First responders from different agencies were unable to communicate with each other because their radios weren’t compatible. Some had to resort to using cheap personal radios while people were literally drowning.
It took five full days to get proper mobile radio and cell towers into the Hill Country. Let me repeat that. Five days. In 2025.
And here’s the part that’ll really make your blood boil. This isn’t a new problem. In 2007, then-Governor Rick Perry commissioned a study that outlined the solution. A fully integrated statewide emergency radio system. The price tag? $800 million. A drop in the bucket compared to what we shell out for border stunts and billionaire tax breaks.
But instead of funding the damn thing, Republicans let the idea rot. Eighteen years later, after floods in 2015, 2018, 2019, 2020, and now this, we still don’t have it.
They always say “we’re better than this,” but the truth is, we’re not. Not when Republican leadership refuses to fund basic infrastructure that could keep people alive. Not when they shrug and pretend it’s too expensive while hoarding surpluses and handing out contracts to their buddies.
Texas isn’t broken by accident. It’s broken by design. And every time we let them get away with it, more people die.
This is what Republican governance looks like.
The next flood-related hearing is July 31.
On that day, this select committee will be hearing directly from local officials. I have a gut feeling that it’s going to be brutal. The biggest takeaways from yesterday’s hearings were:
The county and city failed collasally.
Our Republican infrastructure continues to fail.
The idea of “limited government” once again cost people their lives.
We’ll keep watching. We’ll keep asking who knew what and when. And we’ll keep pointing out that Republican leadership in this state would rather let people drown than invest in prevention, because that might look like “big government,” and we can’t have that in Texas, even if it saves 135 lives.
But for now, we shift gears.
Because while families are still burying their loved ones, Republicans are already twisting their priorities again, this time through redistricting. That’s right. Instead of fixing the holes in our flood response system, they’re trying to redraw maps to grab more power.
So stay tuned. I’ll be clipping, posting, digging, and yelling. You’ll hear from me soon.
August 23: Last day of special session
November 4: Constitutional/TX18/SD09 Election
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You laid it bare, Michelle. Texas didn’t drown from rain—it drowned from neglect. No warnings, no radios, no structure. Just bureaucratic shrugs and billion-dollar excuses.
And now, while families grieve, they’re gerrymandering.
This isn’t a failure. It’s the plan.
I worked in and around the Capitol for 30 years, beginning in 1989. It seems like during that entire time, "interoperability" was an issue. Every time a hurricane struck, or a wildfire, or flooding, emergency responders could not communicate with each other. And so, the Lege would announce it was going to require "interoperability."
Think of the billions of dollars we've spent to state and local fire, police, EMS and disaster services. These people sit around in $100,000 taxpayer-provided vehicles as they drive to their multi-million dollar "law enforcement coordinating centers" or "fusion centers" — also taxpayer-funded. Billions. Of. Dollars.
Once again, the Lege will throw money at state and local emergency managers to support "interoperability." Ten years from now, after another cataclysmic disaster, we'll be told again how "the first responders couldn't communicate."
The problem is not the money, or the increasing pervasiveness of a police state "safety" architecture in our society. The problem is a lack of accountability.