Emmett critical of state, feds dragging feet on flooding reforms

Forget the lip service on flooding reforms after Hurricane Harvey. Where’s the action?

This is a question you’d expect a flooded homeowner to ask. And maybe an environmental lawyer. But even Harris County Judge Ed Emmett is asking it, despite the fact that he and his fellow commissioners passed some significant new flood regulations this week. The regulations, including more stringent elevation requirements in floodways in unincorporated areas, are progress, no doubt.

But compared to the most devastating flooding event in American history, they’re a drop in the bucket.

Emmett will be the first to admit this. Instead of crowing about the reforms, he focused on what is not getting done. That includes many of the items on his list of priorities, from building a third reservoir, which has wide support, to expensive home buyouts in floodprone areas, which will be among the hardest to achieve.

“There are so many,” he said of the buyouts. “It’s costly, it’s time-consuming and it’s agonizing. Not everyone wants to be bought out, and a lot of people do.”

He says he’s in the process of reorganizing his staff to make sure they’re staying on top of flooding reforms he has proposed.

But he said many of the proposals require action from the state and federal governments, which aren’t moving fast enough.

“I’m probably within a month of being really agitated,” Emmett said. “But I know the process has to work.”

He pointed out how state leaders have refused to dip into the $10 billion rainy day fund, a state savings account, but said they assured people they would instead opt for the Legislative Budget Board to redirect funding from state agencies and then repay it with legislative approval in 2019.

But that hasn’t happened.

Just this week in a Senate committee meeting, a Dallas senator suggested a

special legislative session to dip into rainy day funds to help thousands of Texans, some living in tents, with immediate housing needs. The comment drew silence from his fellow committee members, the Houston Chronicle’s Mike Ward reported.

Emmett is frustrated that Gov. Greg Abbott won’t consider using rainy day funds at least to jump start a third reservoir, which has wide bipartisan support in the area affected by Harvey.

“I don’t know why the state won’t go ahead and fund that,” he said, estimating the cost around $500 million. “That’s five percent of the rainy day fund. That’s all.”

Abbott has cracked the window on the idea of a special session, required to use rainy day funds, but has reiterated that he doesn’t want to tap the savings account until the total costs of the storm are known.

At one point, Abbott claimed Houston had enough funds for hurricane relief and then relented a bit by showing up in Houston in September with a $50 million check in state funds for Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner.

But Emmett says he’s perplexed as to why the state hasn’t done more to help other areas affected by the storm, including unincorporated Harris County.

“My gosh, if I were governor, and I’m sitting here on $11 billion dollars by the time they get to the next legislative session,” Emmett said, referring to the rainy day fund. “How good a politician would I be to say, ‘You know what, Southeast Texas, here’s $2 billion. I’m going to solve a lot of your problems.’ ”

He’s concerned that the governor seems to view Harvey relief as a local issue. On some level, it is. But it’s a local issue that affects a region that serves as the economic engine of the state, and a fifth of the state’s population.

Harvey isn’t just a Houston problem. It’s a Texas problem. It’s a U.S. problem.

It’s understandable that state leaders are waiting to see how much Congress will appropriate in federal funds before deciding how much the state should chip in.

But federal funding is another mess — another area of lip service and no action.

The Chronicle’s Kevin Diaz reported last week that the White House’s $44 billion storm relief package, a far cry from the $61 billion Abbott has asked for, is being held hostage in a partisan war over an end-ofyear spending package that has deteriorated to the point of a possible government shutdown.

Jim Blackburn, a veteran environmental lawyer who will be a keynote speaker at Wednesday night’s Chronicle-sponsored symposium “Greater Houston After Harvey,” said he was encouraged by the small action county commissioners took, but frustrated by the glacial pace of officials approaching an epic problem.

“I don’t get a sense of urgency about this problem,” said Blackburn, co-director of Rice University’s Severe Storm Prediction, Education and Evacuation from Disasters (SSPEED) Center.

Blackburn praised Emmett for being the most vocal official on the issue, and calling flooding his No. 1 priority, but the lawyer questioned why other officials aren’t charging ahead.

“I hear it’s the No. 1 priority,” Blackburn said. “I would suggest it’s the only priority. We’ve got to get this issue done with. We haven’t been successful in the past. And I think it’s wrongheaded to think we can continue doing what we’ve been doing.”

No, we can’t. What we’ve been doing cost the Houston region lives, and jobs and thousands of homes, and total losses that could reach $200 billion, making it the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history.

As expensive as that sounds, a lagging recovery and failure to prevent damage that will surely come in a future storm will cost infinitely more.