On August 24, 2018, the Texas General Land Office released a new report entitled “Hurrican Harvey: Texas at Risk” the presents lessons learned, recommends policy changes, and administrative actions, mostly around housing.  This post will highlight the key recommendations included in the report.

The following recommendations are directly from the report’s Executive Summary (bold text added by me).

1. The State of Texas should create a Business Advisory Council on Disaster Recovery and Mitigation to access private business expertise and as a conduit for problems they have in disaster recovery. The Council would not have the authority to spend money or write regulations but would provide much-needed private sector advice and expertise.
2. The Texas Water Development Board’s statutory authority should be substantially expanded to cover flood control and have directive control over the state River Authorities in carrying out these duties. The same Board should have directive control over drainage districts to ensure they are keeping drainage ditches and waterways in a continuous state of repair.
3. The State of Texas should establish a permanent disaster recovery training center for local government officials focused on recovery, disaster fortification, and resilience.
4. The state legislature should establish by state statute a Regional Building Code District (RBCD) with standard-setting authority in the high-risk hurricane region of Southeast Texas which would replace the existing weak and uneven building code system. The Commission would have oversight over building codes in the RBCD which will be composed of the following ten Councils of Government or regional planning areas: Lower Rio Grande Valley, Coastal Bend, Golden Crescent Regional Planning Commission, Houston-Galveston Area, Central Texas, Alamo Area, Brazos Valley, Capital Area, Deep East Texas, and South East Texas. These are the areas historically most at risk of hurricane flooding and wind damage.
5. The state should fund at least 75% of the salary costs of building code enforcement (local inspectors and third-party contractors working for cities and counties) with 25% funded by building permit fees in this new Regional Building Code District. The same capacity strengthening salary program should be extended by the State of Texas for city and county recovery managers.
6. This report recommends that a large reserve account be established using federal funding initially before the next hurricane season later funded by state, city, and county resources to accelerate the existing housing buyback programs for homes which repeatedly flood. Counties and cities participating in these programs would then take the homes out of use and the property used for green space. This fund would be used in the weeks following a hurricane or flooding event before private companies purchase the properties that have a repeated history of flooding. The state legislature should also require rental units or houses for purchase which have repeatedly flooded to disclose this in rental or purchase documents and title registrations.
7. This report endorses the efforts of city and regional planning groups in Texas buying land at market prices without the use of eminent domain to reduce the risk of flooding and preserve reservoir water recharge. This report recommends the state legislature create a commission to study this land purchase program and report on what might be done by the state to support these efforts in the future.
8. Texas should continue to support private philanthropic programs after major disaster and develop a system to integrate public and private sector efforts to help survivors of natural disasters without endangering the independence of the private social service groups.
9. The GLO should implement a saturation Public Information Campaign before and during every hurricane season to ensure the local officials and the public understands what FEMA’s temporary housing programs will provide and what it will not provide under existing federal law in the event of a major hurricane or flooding event.
10. The federal government should consolidate funding for all temporary FEMA housing programs into one block grant to states with a high risk of natural disasters.
11. The GLO should bid out indefinite quantity contracts (IQCs) for information management, construction, and other engineering construction services under the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) procedures before the annual hurricane season each year, so contracts are in place to be used within a week of a major disaster.
12. Congress should grant “notwithstanding authority” to those high disaster risk states which have demonstrated competency in disaster response and recovery for one year following a major disaster. This would allow the waiver of most federal procedural regulations and speed contracting and program management.
13. Congress should expand the definition of what is eligible for reconstruction using FEMA temporary housing funds under the Stafford Act so that damaged housing can be rebuilt to be more resilient and fortified to withstand disasters in the future. In the absence of the phase-out of recreational vehicles and mobile housing units by FEMA, the state legislature should give the Governor the authority to waive city and county prohibitions of their use for one year after a Presidential disaster declaration.
14. Should the federal government expand the definition of what is permissible for reconstruction funding within FEMA programs, the GLO should investigate and consider using new technologies for housing construction which are less expensive, more resilient, and can be implemented faster than traditional housing construction techniques.
15. Congress should enact legislation to consolidate disaster housing programs of FEMA, HUD, and the SBA into one agency or department to eliminate competing missions and business systems which slow down the temporary housing response.
16. Congress should amend the privacy act to give state and local officials managing disaster response and recovery efforts full access to survivor information generated by FEMA if they have applied for and are qualified for assistance. An integrated database should be built from the beginning with full access by state and local recovery and housing response administrators. In the absence of such a change in law, we urge FEMA to amend their benefits application form to allow
    people to voluntarily make their data available to state and local government agencies in order to provide them services.
17. HUD should rewrite the formula for the allocation of funding to municipal and county governments directing aid to low and moderate-income people so that all people in these categories are assisted.
18. This report endorses acceleration of the studies needed to advance the Texas Coastal Barrier System and Upper Texas Coastal Levee system, and the funding of these projects by the U.S. government.

I’ll post a little narrative summary of the findings at some point, but here is the slide deck I presented on August 13, 2018, in Nashville at the International Low Impact Development Conference, hosted by the Environmental & Water Resources Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers.

Birnamwood Drive Results Presentation (2018)