Marble Falls      Many news reports are out now reminding all of us about the tragedies wrought by flash floods in the Texas Hill Country a year ago that hit youth camps and other communities with terrible death and damage.  A report on the precautions at Camp Mystic, where more than 25 children were lost, indicated that there were no real emergency plans, inadequate to nonexistent communications systems for coordination and response, and no real evacuation plan.  The state of Texas responded to this devastatingly critical report with a press release saying that most of these issues had been addressed by new laws in the legislature.

Sadly, new laws don’t save lives without robust enforcement and compliance.  Research everywhere indicates that despite mandates and requirements across almost all governmental jurisdictions requiring emergency plans, as well as climate adaptation plans for incidents such as these, only the smallest number actually follow through with anything realistic or adequate.  And, please note, that’s the public sector. The private sector is even more “catch as, catch can,” so it takes no imagination to understand that Camp Mystic is not the outlier, but likely the norm.

One thing that worked is warning sirens.  For that reason, whether in Arkansas or New Orleans, we have been campaigning for the installation of additional sirens or, where they already exist, modifications on sirens used for tornadoes or other purposes so that they can also provide warnings for flooding.  Meetings with public emergency planning officials find many of them cavalier about preparations and unknowledgeable about how to provide warnings, at best only depending on cellphone alerts, that might or might not work in such emergencies.

It’s hard to get hard and fast data on the costs of sirens.  These are private companies and they like to say that it all depends on the geography, density, etc.  General research indicates that the hardware can run as high as $25 to $35,000 per siren with another $10,000 on installation potentially and $600 or so a year in maintenance.  Where sirens already exist and have the capacity for multiple sounds, and some can have as many as 20, we have found, the cost of adjusting the programming and adding a warning sound for flooding is relatively trivial.  A public entity could implement a siren program for the entire community or tailor sirens to potential flooding areas.  Most estimates maintain that one siren is good for six square miles, so it’s not like most precarious communities will need dozens of these to save lives. Everything being equal, this kind of public safety and climate adaptation expenditure is relatively affordable.

There’s some federal funding for such systems as well.  Common federal funding sources that jurisdictions use for emergency warning / mass notification infrastructure (which can include outdoor sirens and related systems) include:  FEMA Hazard Mitigation Assistance (HMA) programs (often when the project is framed as hazard mitigation/resilience), including: the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program, the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities, and Flood Mitigation Assistance.

This is a fight worth having on some many levels.  Turn on the weather channel over the last week or so and it was water, water everywhere.  What is your community doing to protect you from heavy water events, record rainfalls, and flash floods?

Not much, I think.