Flood alert system vetoed by Governor Abbott

SAN ANTONIO – Lawmakers are convening in Austin tomorrow for their first joint meeting of the select committees on disaster preparedness and flooding.

The mission: improve Texas’ flood warning and emergency communications systems.

But the alert and warning issue is something the legislature tried to address in 2019 – but it was foiled by the governor.

Six years ago, there was a bill that would've allowed Texans to voluntarily sign up for local emergency alerts while they were renewing or getting their driver’s license.

The bill came in response to Hurricane Harvey, which took more than 80 lives and caused tens of billions of dollars in damage in 2017.

But, Governor Greg Abbott vetoed the bill.

In his 2019 veto message, Abbott said:

I appreciate the author’s good intentions, and I have signed important legislation this session that will help Texans prepare for disasters. But to ensure that the local emergency warning systems use data that is accurate, updated, and used appropriately, local governments—not the State—should be in charge of gathering and managing this type of data.

According to UTSA political science chair Jon Taylor, it is unusual for a governor to veto a bill that has as much support as this one did from lawmakers.

"He made the argument based on, I guess, on privacy, based on the argument that that local governments could handle this stuff well, as we saw in July, on July 4, that's not the case," Taylor said.

Now after at least 135 people died from deadly floods across the state, the governor has called a special session, in part, to pass legislation to improve early warning systems.

On Tuesday, we reached out to the governor to ask if he has had a change of heart with that bill and if he regretted vetoing the bill in 2019.

His spokesperson Andrew Mahaleris responded, saying:

Governor Abbott has been consistent that emergency management is best handled from the bottom-up, not the top-down, and that local communities should be empowered to best serve their constituents. The Governor looks forward to working with the legislature in the upcoming special session to improve early warning systems and strengthen emergency communications in flood-prone areas.

"Too many of our local counties simply don't have the ability to put in these kinds of warning systems," Democratic State Senator from Austin Sarah Eckhardt said.

Eckhardt has re-filed the 2019 legislation this week.

"This is a way for those local systems to find out, to get people to sign up and to get access to telephone numbers," she said.

Freshman representative Wes Virdell of Kerr County said with advances in technology, the 2019 bill may be outdated now.

"We know that they geofence the geofence the area, and so they don't have to have somebody opt in to to get those warnings," Virdell said.

"This is really low hanging fruit. If we were, we've got to get serious here, and we've got to do it immediately," Eckhardt added. "This is a 'yes and' circumstance. In areas where there's poor broadband and cell phone coverage, we need sirens. And in areas where we have a lot of second homes, we definitely need regional warning systems that will alert you whether you're in the area or not. And in areas where we can geofence and ping off of a cell tower, we should certainly do that. But not all areas have cell towers."

Taylor said it is imperative for lawmakers to get something done this special session.

"It would be a huge political failure," he said. "And the average Texan would be asking, 'What are you doing?' Here we saw the devastation. We see the aftermath. We see the suffering. We've seen the funerals, where, where is your political will? Please do something."