Sen. Eckhardt pushing for emergency alerts ahead of special session

Editor’s Note: The transcript of this live Q&A has been edited for brevity and clarity.

AUSTIN (KXAN) -- Just weeks after catastrophic flooding in Central Texas, the Texas Legislature will commence a special session next Monday to discuss ways to streamline emergency alerts for Texans when disaster strikes.

KXAN Midday Anchors Will DuPree and Avery Travis spoke to State Sen. Sarah Eckhardt on her filing of Senate Bill 25, which aims to solve the issue.

Avery Travis: So we want to dig into your proposed legislation here in a couple of minutes, but first, talk about the special session starting on Monday. We know there's a lengthy agenda, a lot of topics that the governor and lawmakers want to cover, but how much do you think the deadly flooding we've seen in Central Texas should factor into lawmakers' work next week?

Sarah Eckhardt: Well, certainly, the flooding has to be the absolute top priority. People's lives are threatened, and Texans are in need, and they're in grief. It's very important that every member of the Texas Legislature bend all of their efforts to serving Texans in need, rather than bowing down to political theater.

Will DuPree: We want to circle back to that legislation you just introduced. So you just brought forward Senate Bill 25, which could streamline how Texans can start getting emergency alerts on their phones. What would change if this legislation becomes law?

Eckhardt: We have regional emergency alert systems throughout the state of Texas, to the extent that local governments band together in collaboration to create them. So here in Central Texas, we have Warn Central Texas, and I encourage everyone to go to Warn Central Texas and sign up. It's absolutely voluntary, so we don't get as high of a subscription to Warn Central Texas and other local warning systems that we would like. So this bill would be no cost to the taxpayer.

It would put a check box on your driver's license application or renewal so that you could check that box, and the Department of Motor Vehicles could share your contact information with your local warning system and get you signed up. You can always unsubscribe.

This bill was filed back in 2019 by a couple of my colleagues. I was not in the legislature. Then it passed, but it was vetoed by the governor. The governor said I quote, "local governments, not the state, should be in charge of gathering and managing this type of data." But as we've seen, not enough people are signed up. We really need the state's help, and this is a zero-cost way to increase subscriptions in warning systems.

Travis: You have so much experience in local government as a former Travis County judge. Talk to us about the role that played in putting forth this legislation, and what other flood related items do you want to see discussed in this upcoming special session?

Eckhardt: We really do need to take a longer and honest look at our emergency warning systems -- where they work, and where they don't work, and we have a very big state, so the terrain is very different across the state.

Some areas have no broadband access, which is a real problem for those areas. A warning siren is probably the best option, as long as people are well educated about what to do when they hear the siren. But for other areas where we do have cellphone towers and broadband, we need to make sure that the alerts people are getting are well understood. If you're getting too many alerts on your phone, you will turn them off, and if too many of those alerts don't directly have any effect on you and they're more performative than they are actionable. You'll stop listening to them or paying attention to them. So we need to make sure that they're used well.