Experts say Texas is ignoring root cause of flood's destruction: unregulated development
As the Texas Legislature considers policy responses to the deadly Fourth of July weekend floods during the ongoing special legislative session, experts say state lawmakers are overlooking a key factor that made the disaster so devastating: unregulated development in flood-prone areas.
More than 130 people died in deluges across the state—many of them staying or living in non-permanent structures like RVs and mobile homes that were swept away by floodwaters.
An analysis of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s flood maps by Hearst Newspapers show that many of the affected structures in Travis, Williamson and Burnet counties were located in government-designated floodways or floodplains.
At a nearly 12-hour hearing on July 23, Texas lawmakers on newly-formed House and Senate flood committees peppered officials with questions about weather alerts, flood gauges and emergency warning systems.
But such tools address symptoms rather than root causes, said Andrew Rumbach, a senior researcher at the Urban Institute who studies disaster risk and resilience.
He and other experts say the state must grapple with why so many Texans — especially in rural and unincorporated areas — live in vulnerable structures in high-risk areas. The 2024 State Flood Plan found that 17% of Texans, or about 5.2 million people, live or work in known flood hazard areas. Many fall outside city limits, where county governments lack zoning authority and have limited ability to enforce building standards.
While warning systems and rescue efforts are important, “land use has to be a major part of the solution here,” Rumbach said. “Governments have not only the authority, but also the obligation to take people’s safety into account."
Jim Blackburn, a Rice University professor specializing in environmental law and flooding issues, said the state’s lack of guardrails on floodplain development amounts to negligence.
“We're very lax about the way that we approach land use regulation relative to flooding in Texas,” he said. “I just don't think it has ever received the attention or the focus that it needs at the state level.”
Scope of the disaster
The floods that ravaged Central Texas this month destroyed homes and caused at least 18 confirmed deaths in the Austin area: 10 in Travis County, five in Burnet County, and three in Williamson County, with one person still missing from Marble Falls. In Travis County alone, reported damages exceed $25 million, according to county spokesperson Hector Nieto.
FEMA flood maps show that several of the worst-hit neighborhoods are in high-risk areas. In Georgetown, two RV parks along the San Gabriel River that were all but wiped off the map are directly in the floodway, where water moves most forcefully during storms.
Many jurisdictions outright prohibit new construction in floodways, but most of those rules apply only to immovable structures. However, many people in the RV parks lived there full-time.
In Big Sandy Creek, the hardest-hit area in Travis County, many residents live in manufactured homes that aren't meant to be moved.
Many of those impacted were in the 100-year floodplain, a “high risk” zone that includes areas with a 1% annual chance of flooding. Others were in the 500-year floodplain, an area with a 0.2% chance of flooding in any given year.
Flood maps are meant to show which areas have the highest risk of flooding during major storms. FEMA creates them with help from local governments, using rainfall data, terrain features and models that predict how water moves. The federal agency uses the maps to determine where flood insurance is required, while local officials rely on them to shape building codes and guide development.
However, FEMA’s maps “are not a perfect representation of flood risk, nor were they meant to be,” Rumbach said.
The maps are only updated around every five years, during which time flood conditions can change dramatically. A warming climate has made major rainstorms more and more common in recent years, and new developments can also shift flood risk. For example, expanding paved or concrete areas can lead water to concentrate in new places, Rumbach said.
Some homes impacted during the floods were not in FEMA-designated floodplains—showing that people who live outside of floodplains could also be in danger.
“Many more people are at risk than realize it today,” Rumbach said. “We should be looking to modernize these flood maps to give people a better sense of what risks they face.”
Cheap land, high risk
A combination of factors led mobile home residents and campers to be more vulnerable during the July floods.
One reason, Rumbach said, is that regulations on permanent structures are often stricter than laws dictating temporary land uses, like RV parks or summer camps.
Additionally, land in designated floodplains is often inexpensive, attracting lower-income residents and developers of mobile home parks and RV resorts. Many of these properties are built in floodways or 100-year floodplains, including the Cedar Stays RV Park in Marble Falls, where dozens of mobile homes were picked up and hurled by floodwaters from Hamilton Creek. One person died, and many others had to be rescued by helicopter.
“If you have mobile home parks in (floodplains), they're at high risk, but it's not easy for them to move,” Rumbach said.
Recreational areas, like mobile home parks and campsites, also may have fewer restrictions and less risk awareness than in places where people live year-round.
“The research says that (recreation) is a really under-appreciated area of risk,” Rumbach said.
Regulatory gaps
Unlike cities, most Texas counties cannot regulate land use through zoning, which leaves them with limited power to restrict development in dangerous flood-prone areas. Local governments also lack authority to inspect buildings in unincorporated areas after they’re built.
State law also does not authorize counties to establish and collect drainage fees in unincorporated areas, making it difficult for them to self-finance flood mitigation projects there, according to the state flood plan. Cities, on the other hand, can use money paid to public utility companies for that purpose.
Nearly every Texas flood planning region has asked the Legislature to allow counties to collect drainage fees, per the 2024 state flood plan. Several regions also recommended that state lawmakers clarify counties’ regulatory authority.
Regional flood planning groups have asked Texas officials to create statewide minimum design standards for infrastructure and buildings in order to “reduce loss of life and property from flooding.”
For Rice's Blackburn, it’s clear that the state should prohibit cities and counties from authorizing new developments in floodways. He agrees that the state needs to give counties, and potentially river authorities, more power to regulate.
Travis County Judge Andy Brown, a Democrat, says he’ll ask the Legislature to let counties create locally-tailored floodplain development policies.
“I will recommend to them that they allow counties the ability to create policies that support sustainable land use and development practices aimed at reducing flood risk,” Brown told the Statesman in a statement. “Additionally, it is crucial to ensure counties are able to prioritize the preservation and restoration of natural floodplains, as these areas serve as essential buffers, absorbing floodwaters and minimizing the impact on surrounding communities.”
Chris Steubing of the Texas Floodplain Management Association is also hoping state and local governments will do more.
“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” said Steubing, deputy executive director of the flood mitigation and preparedness coalition. “We can go a long way in improving the planning aspect and where we are across the state.”
What’s next for lawmakers
Lawmakers have vowed to craft policies that will prevent future disasters. At the July 23 hearing, state Sen. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock, said the goal of the special legislative committees is to “find constructive policy solutions which will prevent future loss of life like what our state has suffered over the past few weeks.”
After Hurricane Harvey, the Texas Water Development Board proposed five major flood mitigation strategies, but most were not enacted in the 2025 legislative session. Lawmakers approved $1 billion annually for water infrastructure — some of which may go to flooding mitigation — while other key recommendations for enhanced early warning systems and rural support programs were left unfulfilled.
Hearings continue this week, including testimony from flood survivors in Kerr County on Thursday. Blackburn is confident the state will boost warning systems soon, but said that turning the tide on land use regulations could take years.
“We've got a lot more work to do on being honest about the effects of climate change on flooding and floodplain development," Blackburn said. "We will continue to destroy houses and potentially kill people in the floodplain until we get more serious about it.”
Methodology
Hearst Newspapers sourced floodplain data from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Floodplains appear in the data as a series of zones with different risk designations in the event of a flood.
Data on Travis County floodplains was collected in January 2020 and last revised on June 23 of this year. FEMA’s floodplain data in Williamson County was collected in December 2019 and last revised on April 4. Burnet County data was collected in November 2019 and last revised on Nov. 18, 2021.
The Statesman sourced data on sites impacted during the July floods from Travis County’s press release showing impacted county roads, and on-the-ground reporting in Travis, Williamson and Burnet counties.
Staff writers Maryam Ahmed, Lily Kepner, Keri Heath and Yilun Cheng contributed reporting.
Correction: This article has been updated to reflect that Travis County residents have reported $25 million in damage from the July 5 floods.