Flood relief, camp safety bills pass in final hours of Texas special session

AUSTIN, Texas – The Texas Legislature passed flood relief and camp safety bills late Wednesday as its second special session of the year came to a close.

Lawmakers agreed to allocate about $280 million in state funding for flood relief that would provide matching state funds for areas affected by the catastrophic July Hill Country floods that killed more than 130 people.

The House and Senate also both passed camp safety bills that would require children’s camps to create emergency action plans, build warning systems and prohibit cabins from being located in certain flood plains.

Families of victims of the July 4 floods at Camp Mystic in Kerr County watched as the bills passed. Twenty-seven children and counselors from the camp were killed in the floods that now rank as one of the state’s deadliest natural disasters.

“Our daughter’s life was cut short because common sense safeguards were not in place,” Ellen and Jorge Toranzo, parents of 10-year-old flood victim Greta Katherine Toranzo, said in a statement. “While the passage of these bills will not bring our beautiful, amazing daughter back, they will make Texas camps safer and protect other children.”

Though both the camp safety and flood relief bills passed with large bipartisan majorities, some lawmakers saw flaws in the proposals.

Rep. Wes Virdell, a freshman House member who represents Kerrville, said the camp safety bill was a “shotgun” that would upend many summer camps that have operated in Texas for decades. Virdell pointed to a provision in the bill that would ban cabins from being within 1,000 feet of a floodway as a particularly onerous provision that failed to account for the height differential between the cabin and a body of water.

“You could be sitting on a cliff 100, 200 feet above a floodway, but if you’re not also 1,000 feet back from that cliff, you’re not allowed to have a cabin there,” the Brady Republican said on the House floor.

In the flood relief bill, Rep. Ken King, R-Canadian, expressed frustration that the Senate stripped out $50 million in funding for emergency communication interoperability. During hearings on the emergency response to the floods, several first responders reported it took days for authorities to integrate radio communications in the aftermath of the floods.

“Don’t you find it odd that we don’t have $50 million for public safety, but we have $300 million for Matthew McConaughey?” King said, referring to Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s push for a film incentive fund that was heavily promoted by McConaughey and other Texas movie stars.

Sen. Joan Huffman, R-Houston, said on the Senate floor that negotiations over radio interoperability broke down after House members refused to accept something less than the $50 million they wanted.

“The House pretty much wanted all or nothing, so we ended up going with nothing, unfortunately,” Huffman said.

What remains in the bill is $200 million for matching flood relief funds that will supplement federal FEMA dollars for areas affected by the floods, $50 million for sirens and early warning systems in flood prone areas and $28 million for weather forecasting. Lawmakers are tapping the state’s Rainy Day Fund to pay for the items.

Lawmakers also passed a bill that aims to tamp down disaster-related fraud. In the aftermath of the July 4 floods, several people in affected areas reported being contacted by people seeking money for flood relief that was later found to be fraudulent.

For instance, individuals who purported to represent a volunteer fire department that lost its firehouse in the flooding solicited donations across Texas. The attorney general’s office is investigating those reports.

House Bill 20 would create a new felony criminal offense for people who solicit donations for disaster relief and keep the money for themselves. Besides prison time, a person convicted of disaster related fraud would be liable for three times the amount of money they received.

The proposal would have the attorney general’s office create a fraud hotline during each declared disaster and a voluntary accreditation process for disaster relief charities.