Bill vetoed in 2019 returns in special session. Could it have saved lives in Texas floods?

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In the 2019 legislative session, the first after Hurricane Harvey destroyed thousands of homes and killed more than 80 people in the Houston area, Texas lawmakers promised to shore up the state's emergency infrastructure.

One proposal both chambers resoundingly approved, House Bill 3022, would have let Texans sign up to receive local emergency alerts while obtaining or renewing a driver's license. Cities and counties could then contract with the Department of Public Safety to obtain the sign-up data for their warning systems.

Local entities have historically struggled to secure voluntary sign-ups for these systems, which include WarnCentralTexas, and lawmakers believed the bill would help fix that. 

The bill died on Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk.

In a veto statement, the Republican governor said he appreciated the authors’ “good intentions” but that localities would be better positioned to collect constituents’ contact information.

“To ensure that the local emergency warning systems use data that is accurate, updated, and used appropriately, local governments—not the State—should be in charge of gathering and managing this type of data,” Abbott wrote on June 15, 2019.

Now, after flash floods earlier this month killed at least 135 Texans in the Hill Country, the bill’s original authors are hoping Abbott will give the proposal a second look. They say the legislation could have helped warnings reach more people, potentially saving lives during disasters over the past six years.

Experts who spoke with the American-Statesman agree that the proposal is worth revisiting.

“One life lost that could've been saved is a tragedy,” said Timothy Sellnow, a Clemson University professor who researches crisis and risk communication. “A system in place that saves one life is worthwhile.”

The Texas Legislature is convening for a 30-day special session beginning Monday, and Abbott has added improvements to early warning systems and emergency communications to the agenda.

Austin Democratic state Sen. Sarah Eckhardt, who was the Travis County judge when the original bill was filed, has refiled the bill as Senate Bill 25 this session. She reintroduced a bill similar to HB 3022 in 2023, but it never received a hearing.

She said the opt-in system would have been especially useful in the unincorporated areas of Travis County that were hardest-hit by deadly flooding July 5.

“We have some areas of terrain that are super tricky to serve, so you're not likely to get a firefighter showing up at your door” to warn you, Eckhardt said.

State Rep. Ron Reynolds, a Missouri City Democrat who coauthored the 2019 bill, also told the Statesman he’ll try again.

The veto “really does show that our state has not done everything that we can to keep our citizens safe,” Reynolds said. “Texas’ response is always ‘hopes and prayers,’ and I just don't think that is sufficient.”

How the bill would work

The idea for the 2019 proposal came from a Fort Bend County commissioner.

During Hurricane Harvey, former commissioner Ken DeMerchant found residents were inundated with conflicting messages, consumed false information online or received delayed warnings. In search of a solution, the suburban Houston-area county purchased a system to send texts, emails and robocalls during emergencies.

But they faced a problem: “it didn't have any of the residents' information,” DeMerchant said in a 2019 legislative hearing.

At DeMerchant’s request, Fort Bend County Republican state Rep. Rick Miller proposed HB 3022, which would require driver’s license applications to include a checkbox for emergency alert opt-ins. 

Its potential cost to the state was estimated to be negligible in multiple analyses by the Legislative Budget Board.

“It was such a no-brainer,” said Miller, the bill’s primary author, who is now a Sugarland City Council member. “It was hard to accept that (Abbott) would veto something as simple and useful as that could have been.”

Republican state Sen. Lois Kolkhorst of Brenham, who sponsored the measure, did not respond to the Statesman’s request for comment.

Keri Stephens, a University of Texas professor who studies mobile communication, said the variations in warning systems between regions could complicate statewide signups.

“My big fear would be that you set peoples' expectations that there is a system in their local area and there might not be,” she said.

Boosting emergency preparedness

Many cities and counties operate their own warning systems. For Austin residents, that system is WarnCentralTexas, which covers 10 counties in the Capital Area Council of Governments region. In Kerr County, it’s CodeRED.

Residents can voluntarily opt in to receive text, call or email alerts. Local governments can also contract with service providers to obtain the phone numbers of people within their jurisdictions. 

Martin Ritchey testified in favor of HB 3022 when it was proposed in 2019. He’s worked extensively on WarnCentralTexas as the homeland security director for CAPCOG, which runs the system.

He said only about 8 percent of residents have signed up voluntarily for WarnCentralTexas alerts. After years of outreach and investment in contracts with cell phone providers, officials have built a database of roughly 1.6 million numbers, covering about 75% of the capital-area population in total. But Ritchey said HB 3022 would have increased that reach further.

“We would have had more contacts in the system, and, by virtue of having those contacts, we would have had folks notified about these hazards,” he said.    

Ritchey also noted that many local governments don’t have the money or resources that the state has to build up their lists.

In contrast to these opt-in systems, the Federal Emergency Management Agency uses its Integrated Public Alert and Warning System to send National Weather Service warnings, Amber Alerts and other emergency notifications via mobile carrier. IPAWS alerts reach all cell phones within a certain distance of a targeted cell phone tower, regardless of whether their owners have signed up to receive them, and local governments can also use this system to reach people in their jurisdiction.

 In part because IPAWS alerts are loud and not affected by “do not disturb” settings, they are considered the gold standard in emergencies, Sellnow said.

Yet systems like WARNCentralTexas are useful because they let officials tailor warnings to home addresses, making them more precise than IPAWS alerts, Ritchey said. They also reach people regardless of whether they’re at home, potentially allowing them to prepare or to warn friends and relatives who may be in danger.

Furthermore, people who opt into these alert systems are more likely to heed the warnings they receive.

“Even a terse message at least puts them on high alert, and, in our experience, makes them more ready to respond,” Sellnow said.

Jeannette Sutton, a professor at the University at Albany and an expert on alerts and warnings, said that the sign-up mechanism in the bill would have made it significantly easier — and cheaper — for local governments to solicit phone numbers.

Sutton added that with higher participation in an opt-in system, emergency managers could use that channel for less urgent alerts and conserve IPAWS alerts for the most high-risk situations.

“It is another tool to reach people when they're in danger, and we need all the tools that we can get right now,” she said.

Limitations to phone-based warning systems

It’s difficult to know what difference the sign-up mechanism in HB 3022 would have made in recent years.

Cell service is already spotty in the mostly-rural Hill Country, and disasters can further disrupt wireless networks. Officials have focused on the need for sirens in Kerr County, where the rapidly-rising Guadalupe River swept away campers, some of whom did not have cell phones with them. Texas state agencies thrice denied the county’s requests to fund such a system, Hearst Newspapers reported.

In the Austin area, even people who received alerts from the weather service or Travis County say they weren’t sufficiently warned about the impending danger. Some didn’t understand the seriousness of the floods, and others received text messages more than an hour after waters had receded, the Statesman reported.

Experts stressed that text-based warning systems should be used in conjunction with other tools and preventative measures. Opt-in systems are most effective when paired with instruction about disasters and how to respond to warnings, Sellnow said, making education a crucial responsibility of local governments. People unfamiliar with certain disasters — such as out-of-town visitors caught in the Hill Country flooding — may be at higher risk during emergencies.

And finally, there’s the problem of “alert fatigue.” Kerrville City Manager Dalton Rice told NBC News he didn’t hear the early morning flood warning because he had silenced his cell phone’s weather alerts, and a recent study shows Texans turn off phone alerts more than residents of any other state.

As Texas considers changes, Eckhardt said officials should also rethink how alerts are used.

“We need to take a look at how we’re utilizing these alerts and only use them for truly property- and life-threatening circumstances,” she said. “And also, we need to educate our population to understand the warnings.”

Abbott declined to specify whether he would consider a similar bill during the special session. However, his spokesperson, Andrew Mahaleris, said the governor “looks forward to working with the Legislature in the upcoming special session to improve early warning systems and strengthen emergency communications in flood-prone areas.”

In the meantime, Ritchey is urging people to keep their alerts on and to sign up for local warning systems.

“You could be the only one receiving that emergency information to protect your family and people that you're around,” Ritchey said. “So I would encourage people to think more broadly about what these messages may mean for them and for those around them.”