‘Disasters Are a Human Choice’: Texas Counties Have Little Power to Stop Building in Flood-Prone Areas

Editor s Note This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune The Texas Tribune is a member-supported nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and framework Learn more at texastribune org Camp Mystic the private summer camp that now symbolizes the deadly Central Texas floods sat on a tract of land known to be at high jeopardy for a devastating flood Nearly million Texas homes are similarly situated in parts of the state susceptible to dangerous floodwaters according to a state estimate A quarter of the state s land carries particular degree of severe flood peril leaving an estimated million Texans in practicable jeopardy Yet local governments especially counties have limited approach tools to regulate building in areas majority of prone to flooding The state s explosive rise a yearning for inexpensive land and a state far behind in planning for extreme weather compound the difficulty experts revealed While cities can largely decide what is built within their limits counties have no jurisdiction to implement comprehensive building codes or zoning that could limit people from living close to the water s edge Camp Mystic and a multitude of of the other camps along the Guadalupe River in Kerr County where the catastrophe s wreckage has been concentrated were far outside city limits and any regulatory authority of the Kerrville City Council Certain guardrails exist when it comes to building on flood plains For property owners in flood-prone areas to tap federal flood insurance localities have to enact minimum building standards set by the federal regime And counties can use a limited supply of federal dollars to relocate residents out of flood zones However those programs have had mixed success Other programs to fortify infrastructure are tied to federally required hazard mitigation plans which preponderance rural counties in Texas do not have on file Keeping people out of the state s major flood zones altogether is unrealistic if not impossible experts in flood plain management and infrastructure declared For one it s human nature to want to be near water whether it s to live or vacation there Everybody is drawn to water mentioned Christopher Steubing who heads the Texas Floodplain Management Association It becomes challenging when you re telling people what they can and cannot do with their property It s a delicate balance especially in Texas Families have flocked to Texas from more expensive parts of the country in search of a lower cost of living moving to places more vulnerable to severe weather events like flooding and wildfires intensified by situation change research shows The state s population has mushroomed over the last decade spurring a building frenzy in cities and unincorporated areas alike The state s total population has grown by more than percent since Meanwhile the Hill Country which includes Kerr County has grown by about percent Kerr County has seen relatively little population enhancement in the last inadequate years revealed Lloyd Potter the state s demographer But other parts of the Hill Country including neighboring Gillespie County have seen relatively steady population upsurge It is a desirable area for retirees Potter explained It s beautiful and it s reasonably close to urbanized areas so I think that improvement is likely to continue Particular people don t have a choice but to live in flood-prone areas where land is typically cheaper Often cities and towns only allow cheaper housing like mobile and manufactured homes to go in places that carry a higher danger of flooding disclosed Andrew Rumbach a senior fellow at the Urban Institute who studies setting liability When a weather accident destroys a mobile home park often it gets rebuilt right where it was Rumback explained The only place you can build it is right back in the flood plain Rumbach reported Determining what can be built on flood plains is largely left to local officers who may feel uneasy about limiting what property owners do with their land especially in a state like Texas known for prioritizing personal liberty for fear that doing so will harm the local business activity or lead to retribution against them at the ballot box experts reported Often the aim is not to stop people from building there altogether but to create standards that make doing so less risky Even when places adopt new rules rise that predates those rules is often grandfathered in How strictly local authorities regulate improvement in flood plains comes down to political will revealed Robert Paterson an associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin s School of Architecture Fundamentally disasters are a human choice disclosed Paterson who specializes in land use and environmental planning We can choose to develop in relation to high liability or we can choose not to We can stay out of harm s way Texas adopted its first statewide flood plan last year As more people move outside of the state s major urban areas cities towns and counties have increasingly adopted flood plain management rules for the first time or enacted stricter ones Steubing declared You have counties that are catching up and adopting standards but the expansion can happen a lot faster than we can get ordinances adopted Steubing revealed Even so localities aren t tackling maturation in flood zones rapidly enough to keep up with the pace of massive weather disasters Rumbach declared and states can t afford to wait for every city and county to adopt stricter standards State lawmakers in the present weighing what measures to take in the flooding s aftermath should consider strategies to give cities and counties better tools to manage flood plain maturation he reported States are the right level of regime to do this because they re close enough to their communities to understand what is needed in different parts of the state and to have regulations that make sense Rumbach stated But they re far enough away from local governments that we can t have this race to the bottom where particular places are just the Wild West and they re able to build whatever they want while others are trying to be responsible stewards of safety and lower property damage There is evidence that particular Texas cities are taking flood plain management seriously Bulk parts of Texas saw relatively little expansion on flood plains during the first two decades of this century according to a review published last year by setting researchers at the University of Miami and other institutions But parts of the Hill Country like Kerr Bandera Burnet and Llano counties saw more flood plain advance than other parts of the state researchers uncovered As the Hill Country population grows people are increasingly finding themselves in harm s way commented Avantika Gori an assistant professor of civil and environmental at Rice University and flood expert Local and state administrators can make different decisions on how to develop around flood plains she explained We can t prevent extreme rainfall from happening but we can choose where to develop where to live where to put ourselves Gori stated The Hill Country particularly the areas farther from the Interstate corridor is less developed There could be a temptation to build more as part of the recovery Following the Wimberley flood developers pressured regulators to allow for more building in the flood plain as the area s population continued to grow explained Robert Mace executive director and chief water plan officer of the Meadows Center for Water and the Setting at Texas State University My advice is a river is beautiful but as we ve all seen it can be a raging horrific beast and it necessities to be treated with respect Mace reported Part of that respect comes from making careful decisions about where we build A confluence of factors lead to structures being built on the flood plain stated Jim Blackburn a professor of environmental law in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at Rice University Lax regulations with loopholes that allow existing structures to remain on flood plains out-of-date flood maps that do not show the true risks posed to residents and economic incentives for developers to build on seemingly attractive land near the water all encourage the progress to continue Blackburn revealed I get it Blackburn explained People want to be by the river It s private property and we don t like to tell people what to do with their private property but there comes a point where we have to say we ve had enough The federal regulation of advancement on flood plains is largely done through the National Flood Insurance Operation which subsidizes flood insurance in exchange for implementing flood plain management standards Under federal law buildings on a flood plain must be elevated above the anticipated water level during a -year storm or a storm with a percent chance of occurring in any given year Local governments must implement the scheme and map flood plains Local personnel may impose additional building restrictions for building in these areas such as the requirement in Houston that all new structures be elevated two feet above the -year flood elevation Kerrville last updated its rules overseeing flood plain advancement in according to the city s website A city spokesperson did not instantly return a request for comment Texas historically has been unfriendly to federal environmental regulation which is viewed as excessive red tape that gets in the way of economic progress Blackburn announced That has led to the state being decades behind the curve in reacting to more frequent and intense rainstorms fueled by a warming environment As temperatures on average go up more water on the Earth s surface is evaporated into the atmosphere and the warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture That extra moisture in the atmosphere creates more intense and frequent storms according to the U S Geological Survey Additional rise can also leave flood maps even further out of date as more impermeable surfaces replace natural flood-fighting vegetation Sharif stated A evaluation authored by Hatim Sharif a civil and environmental engineering professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio and other UTSA researchers uncovered that the Wimberley flood was worsened by new construction removing natural limitations to flooding although natural causes were the primary drivers of the flood Experts revealed that the flooding in the less-developed Kerr County was likely not worsened in a notable way by maturation Sharif did encourage the state to fund a investigation similar to the one he conducted on the Wimberley flood to allow regulators and residents to better understand how exactly Friday s flood occurred Sharif also argued in favor of further investments in impact-based forecasting That area of survey combines regular forecasting with on-the-ground information about what the impact of that forecast will be and who is in harm s way to provide clearer warnings to residents or in Sharif s words What do inches of rain mean for me as a person staying in a camp near the river Countless of the flood plain maps throughout the state are out of date given the reality of more frequent and intense storms and continuing advance Blackburn mentioned and local personnel face political pressures not to restrict new evolution with tougher building codes In the city of Clear Lake installed then removed signs warning that a hurricane storm surge could reach as high as feet in the city after concerns were raised that the signs were impacting property values I think that tells us a lot Blackburn noted We re more worried about home sales than the safety of the people buying the homes The post Disasters Are a Human Choice Texas Counties Have Little Power to Stop Building in Flood-Prone Areas appeared first on The Texas Observer