AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas lawmakers on Wednesday scrutinized the state's emergency response to the July 4 floods that killed at least 136 people after a top Republican said legislators had no intention of criticizing or assigning blame.
“Our select committee will not armchair quarterback,” said Republican Sen. Charles Perry, adding it sought to draw lessons on flood prevention and preparedness.
Nim Kidd, the head of the Texas emergency management department, offered lawmakers suggestions to mitigate a similar catastrophe, including ways to strengthen emergency communications. But some Democrats cast doubt on the agency's response and whether it was doing enough to boost flood infrastructure in rural towns.
“We can mitigate or eliminate the possibility this could happen in the future," Democratic state Rep. Joe Moody said. “And that’s not a blame game, that’s accountability.”
Local officials have faced scrutiny over why more warnings weren’t sent to residents in harm’s way along the hard-hit Guadalupe River. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has said assigning blame for the disaster is “the word choice of losers.”
State and county emergency response officials were scheduled to testify, but not officials from Kerr County, the area most impacted by the floods. Perry, the committee chair, said this would avoid pulling them away from their work.
In Washington, the acting chief of the Federal Emergency Management Agency defended the agency amid criticism that FEMA’s flood response was impaired by bureaucratic delays that slowed the deployment of urban search and rescue teams and left FEMA call centers unstaffed.
“I can’t see anything we did wrong,” FEMA acting administrator David Richardson told a U.S. House subcommittee on Wednesday.
In addition to the floods in Texas Hill Country, the other major issue for this summer's 30-day special session is a partisan redrawing of U.S. House maps, which aims to give Republicans more winnable seats in the 2026 elections.
Democrats want to address flood relief and new flood warning systems before taking votes on congressional maps sought by President Donald Trump. They have not ruled out a walkout in a bid to derail the redistricting, which they have slammed as a partisan power grab.
Kidd confirmed that the number of flooding deaths was 136, up from 135, after Abbott said a missing woman’s body had been found. Two people remain missing in Kerr County.
Abbott said they are a man and a girl from Camp Mystic. At one point, officials said more than 160 people were unaccounted for in the county, but ultimately found that most were safe.
Twenty-seven campers and counselors, most of them children, were killed at the all-girls Christian summer camp in Kerr County, which does not have a warning system along the river after several missed opportunities by state and local agencies to finance one.
Lawmakers have filed bills to improve early warning systems and emergency communications and to provide relief funding. Legislators are scheduled to visit Kerrville on July 31 to hear from residents.
Democrats have left open the possibility of filibusters or walking out in the coming weeks to block the proposed congressional map redraw. On Monday, most of the party's members in the House signed a letter to the speaker stating that they would not engage in any work before addressing flood relief.
But Democrats have few paths to resistance as the minority party in both chambers. Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton has threatened to arrest those who attempt to walk out, on top of the $500 daily fines lawmakers face for breaking a quorum.
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Associated Press writers Jamie Stemgle in Dallas and Gabriela Aoun Angueira in San Diego contributed to this report.
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Lathan is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
Nadia Lathan, The Associated Press
