THE LEAD’S EDITORIAL: THAT WASN’T AN ENCOURAGING START

Wednesday’s legislative hearing into the July 4 floods that killed 108 people in Kerr County was supposed to be a fact-finding mission, not an exercise in “armchair quarterbacking,” as Committee Chairman Sen. Charles Perry promised in his opening remarks.

That promise lasted about as long as it took lawmakers to pull out copies of the Houston Chronicle’s morning investigation and begin their assault.

For more than 11 hours, senators and representatives grilled witnesses about the deadliest natural disaster in recent Texas history. But the tone quickly shifted from measured inquiry to pointed attacks, particularly against the only Kerr County official who testified: Tara Bushnoe, general manager of the Upper Guadalupe River Authority.

Bushnoe, one of our community’s most respected public servants, found herself facing angry lines of questioning from lawmakers who seemed to have little understanding of what UGRA actually does or how dramatically the agency has changed over the past four decades.

The Chronicle’s Incomplete Picture

Much of the committee’s venom appeared drawn from the Houston Chronicle’s investigation, published the morning of the hearing, which criticized UGRA’s decision to lower taxes rather than invest in flood warning systems. The story painted a compelling narrative of an agency that chose fiscal conservatism over public safety.

Committee Chairman Rep. Ken King, R-Canadian, directly referenced the Chronicle article, pressing UGRA on whether it was correct that with a $2.3 million budget and $3.4 million reserve fund, they chose not to proceed with flood warning projects and even implemented a tax cut instead.

But the Chronicle’s account, while well-reported, missed crucial context about UGRA’s transformation from a major utility operator to a small environmental monitoring agency with just eight full-time employees. King himself seemed puzzled by UGRA’s current scope, asking, “You’re not a water source, right? You have some gauges and you build dashboards. What do you spend your money on?”

The story didn’t mention that UGRA’s dam failed in 1984, triggering decades of costly litigation that fundamentally altered the agency’s trajectory. It didn’t explain how UGRA ceded its water and wastewater operations to the city of Kerrville, lost its regulatory authority over floodplain management, and was forced to transfer valuable assets like its pioneering aquifer storage well to settle lawsuits.

This institutional history matters. UGRA today isn’t the same agency that built flood warning systems in 1988. It’s a shadow of its former self, focused on basic river monitoring and water quality testing, operating with a skeleton crew in a regulatory environment that has shifted emergency management responsibilities to other agencies.

Unfair Attacks on Dedicated Service

Representative Ann Johnson’s questioning was particularly troubling. Drawing on her Houston experience with catastrophic floods, she repeatedly invoked the deaths of children to attack Bushnoe personally.

“We’ve had a number of funerals for eight-year-old little girls from families that trusted and sent their children to your county,” Johnson said, her voice heavy with emotion and accusation. She later referenced the 1987 tragedy that killed 10 campers at Pot O’ Gold Camp, saying, “That river can kill because it killed children in the ’80s.”

But Johnson’s attacks missed the mark entirely. UGRA doesn’t run summer camps. It doesn’t issue evacuation orders. It doesn’t operate emergency services. As Bushnoe repeatedly explained, UGRA’s role is to fund data collection and make that information available to the National Weather Service and emergency management officials who are responsible for public warnings.

When Sen. Pete Flores asked whether UGRA calls the sheriff during flood events, Bushnoe’s honest answer — “No, sir. I do not call the sheriff” — seemed to shock lawmakers. But this reflects the reality of how emergency management works in Texas, not a failure of leadership.

Missing the Real Problems

King asked pointed questions that revealed deeper issues: whether Bushnoe or any UGRA board member was part of Kerr County’s emergency management team (they weren’t), and whether UGRA monitors data 24 hours a day (they don’t). His observation that “they really don’t have an emergency coordinated team” in Kerr County hit closer to the actual problem.

King also noted he had asked for a meteorologist to be included in the hearing — expertise that was glaringly absent from an 11-hour investigation into a catastrophic weather event. Instead, lawmakers focused on administrative details like whether taxpayers were asked to vote on flood warning systems and why UGRA built a dashboard when, as King noted, “I think we need gauges not dashboards.”

The Real Failures Went Unexamined

While lawmakers browbeat Bushnoe about flood warning systems, they largely ignored the actual emergency management failures that cost lives on July 4.

Perry mentioned in passing that there was “infighting between city and county officials” and that the local emergency manager was “checked out.” Bushnoe wasn’t even included in the Emergency Operations Center until three days after the disaster.

More importantly, the committee failed to examine fundamental questions about the disaster. What was the National Weather Service’s role in forecasting this event, and was the agency appropriately staffed to handle this emergency? Why does Texas allow property owners to build in the most dangerous parts of a floodplain — the floodway? Nearly all of the deaths came from those who were sleeping in the floodway.

These are the real breakdowns that deserve scrutiny. But instead of examining why local emergency management failed or why people were allowed to sleep in the most dangerous flood zones, lawmakers focused on why a small river authority with a dozen employees didn’t single-handedly solve regional flood preparedness.

Missing Expertise, Misplaced Blame

Perhaps most troubling, the 11-hour hearing included no testimony from meteorologists, hydrologists or geologists who could explain the extreme weather conditions that created this catastrophe. The committee had plenty of time for political theater but none for scientific expertise about what actually happened on July 4.

The hearing also revealed that NOAA is ultimately responsible for flood alerts, not local river authorities. Yet lawmakers continued to press UGRA about warning systems as if the agency had primary responsibility for emergency notifications.

Even when the questioning became particularly harsh, with UGRA’s decisions described as “pathetic,” King tried to redirect the focus, saying, “We’re not here to armchair quarterback… I don’t want to belabor that because it’s not the intent.” But the damage was already done.

A Better Path Forward

Kerr County deserves a thorough, fair investigation into what went wrong on July 4. We need to understand why emergency management coordination failed.

We need to examine whether our governance structures are adequate for modern disasters. We need to explore how small agencies like UGRA can better support emergency preparedness within their actual capabilities and legal authorities.

But we won’t get those answers by scapegoating dedicated public servants like Tara Bushnoe, who has served our community faithfully for years within the constraints of a dramatically changed institution.

The next hearing is scheduled for July 31 at the Hill Country Youth Event Center. Let’s hope lawmakers do better this time — less political theater, more genuine fact-finding. Our community deserves better than Wednesday’s disappointing performance.

The families who lost loved ones on July 4 deserve real answers, not convenient scapegoats. It’s time for this committee to live up to their stated promise and focus on solutions rather than blame.