More than 16 million Texans, or almost 58 percent of the population, live in a county put under a disaster declaration after Hurricane Harvey. The more than 50 inches od rainfall that caused the flooding affected nearly 7 million people in the Houston metro area, or 25 percent of Texas’s population. The storm caused at least $125 billion in damage and a $3.8 billion loss in gross state product. While Texas is a national leader in disaster response, Hurricane Harvey was unprecedented.
When the 86th Texas Legislature convened in January of 2019, it was the first time the biennial legislative branch had met since the storm hit in late-August of 2017. Over that interim, a number of reports made recommendations that led to legislation. The Governor’s Commission to Rebuild Texas wrote a report on the storm and the recovery entitled Eye of the Storm that reviewed the state’s response and included recommendations. The General Land Office (GLO) also made 18 recommendations in a report entitled Hurricane Harvey: Texas At Risk. In the legislative branch, numerous committees received interim charges related to Hurricane Harvey from the Speaker and Lieutenant Governor, held hearings, and wrote interim reports. Finally, the lived experience of legislators and their constituents led to a number of bills.
After studying what went right and what could have been done better, the Legislature filed more than 170 disaster bills, and passed around 60 of those bills. The 86th Legislature also recognized that resilience to disaster is an emerging policy frontier where the solution to identified problems is not always immediately clear. In such cases, legislation passed creating task forces, advisory councils, and work groups with instructions to study, report, and make recommendations for a future legislature.
Responding to disasters is an interdisciplinary endeavor requiring coordination across not just the local, state, and federal executive agencies, but also with the non-profit sector and numerous for-profit industries. A disaster simultaneously affects a number of policy areas whose experts and regulatory framework normally operate independently of each other. For example, in a disaster, the power may go out, healthcare facilities may be disrupted, telecommunications could go offline, water systems can fail, numerous cars may get damaged, numerous structures may need to be rebuilt, roads may need to be cleared, grocery stores may not be open, and many of those things may or may not be insured.
The Texas Interfaith Center is analyzing and summarizing the bills that passed and the work to be done before the legislature meets again. Over the coming days, we will be posting these bills grouped by category. While our particular niche will be with an eye toward the role of faith-based nonprofits that assist in disaster relief, we cannot and do not operate alone. Increasing resilience to natural disasters in the 21st Century will require the collective wisdom of the community.