San Antonio \u2014 AUSTIN \u2014 In the wake of the deadly July 4 flooding in Kerr County, a new state legislative committee is working to prevent future tragedies. The Joint House and Senate Texas Disaster Preparedness and Flooding Committee \u2014 formed at the direction of Gov. Greg Abbott \u2014 is scheduled to meet next Wednesday at the Capitol.<\/p>\n
State Sen. Jos\u00e9 Men\u00e9ndez, D-San Antonio, who sits on the committee, says it\u2019s time for bold action, not politics.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not the time for politics but for action,\u201d Men\u00e9ndez told Fox San Antonio. Specifically for the families who lost children in the fast-rising floodwaters and the families who were enjoying one of the most patriotic holidays, and who had little or no warning of the wall of water that was about to change their lives.<\/p>\n
Men\u00e9ndez said that while funding has been allocated, the state will need more than just money to fix what failed.<\/p>\n
He believes a single alert system won\u2019t be enough, especially in rural areas where cell service is unreliable and terrain limits communication.<\/p>\n
\u201cSirens alone may or may not be good enough,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ve got to look at a multi-factor way of doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The committee\u2019s focus won\u2019t be on investigating what went wrong, but rather on shaping new policies to save lives. Men\u00e9ndez referenced a past tragedy in the same region.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs recently as 1987, 10 kids died in a bus flood here,\u201d he said. \u201cWe should\u2019ve done something then.\u201d<\/p>\n
He emphasized the need for a broad, multi-agency approach: \u201cIt has to be a collaborative effort, local, state, and federal. Everyone needs skin in the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
From improving communication between emergency agencies to rethinking how Texans are warned, Men\u00e9ndez says the time to act is now.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not a partisan issue,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is a public safety issue, and Texans have to confront it head-on.\u201d<\/p>\n
The first meeting will be held in Austin, with a follow-up scheduled later this month in Kerrville.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"San Antonio \u2014 AUSTIN \u2014 In the wake of the deadly July 4 flooding in Kerr County, a…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":68775,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5133],"tags":[5229,48664,48666,8580,30887,48667,8739,5292,7202,7203,48665,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-68774","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-antonio","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-disaster-preparedness","10":"tag-emergency-agencies","11":"tag-flooding","12":"tag-kerr-county","13":"tag-legislative-committee","14":"tag-major-story","15":"tag-public-safety","16":"tag-san-antonio","17":"tag-sanantonio","18":"tag-senator-menendez","19":"tag-texas","20":"tag-tx","21":"tag-united-states","22":"tag-united-states-of-america","23":"tag-unitedstates","24":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","25":"tag-us","26":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114866278041334773","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68774\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}