What Texas can learn from California wildfire 'failures'
AUSTIN (KXAN) — On the same day 15 Texas Democratic House members are in California seeking advice from state leaders on ways to push back against redistricting, there are legislative solutions to be found in that same state related to this month's deadly floods, a KXAN investigation found.
Eight years after the 2017 Nuns-Tubbs wildfires, killing more than 20 people, Sonoma County Emergency Management Dep. Director Sam Wallis said there are similarities, and takeaways, for Texas.
"We just weren't prepared for a disaster of that magnitude," he said of the blaze that scorched more than 36,000 acres. It started late at night, in an uninhabited area, and went unnoticed "until it was kind of knocking on our doorsteps," Wallis recalled.
"Very much a devastating loss that spurred a lot of changes," he said.
From concerns over its own "insufficient communication and alert warnings to the public" to challenges with CodeRED -- the opt-in mobile alert warning system also used in Kerrville and Kerr County --Wallis points to lessons learned.
"Lessons that we painfully had to go through, which is we have to understand what the capabilities and limitations of systems are," Wallis told KXAN. "We have to come up with policies and procedures before the disaster, so we know exactly what to do, and we need to practice, practice, practice."
Following the fires, California enacted new changes. Wallis said his county can now obtain phone numbers directly from utility companies to send alerts in English and Spanish.
"Our [opt-in CodeRED] numbers prior to the 2017 wildfires were, in retrospect, appalling," he said. "We only had about 5,000 people out of a county of 500,000 who had signed up."
After the change, the county had "about 600,000 phone numbers" in its database that it could contact in an emergency. To coordinate the complicated process, Sonoma County created a community alert warning manager.
That point person position was first given to Wallis. He said evacuation alerts are now pre-recorded, saving time, with weekly practice drills.
"It's just become part of our DNA," he said.
'Learn from our failures'
California now requires alerting authorities to "err on the side of protecting the public" whenever there is uncertain or conflicting information about a threat.
Texas State Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston and Rep. Armando Martinez, D-Weslaco, both sit on special committees to address Texas' response to the Hill Country floods. Both said looking at past disasters can be useful when debating future solutions.
On Wednesday, the joint committee heard hours of testimony, which includes ways to improve emergency communication equipment. The committee will meet again July 31 in Kerrville to speak with residents and local leaders.
Martinez, a firefighter and vice chair of the House Select Committee on Disaster and Flooding, pointed to the 2024 wildfires in the Texas Panhandle as "another one that we can look at." He said the goal is to build on work already done to improve emergency preparedness. The investigative committee that looked into that fire was chaired by Rep. Ken King, R-Canadian, who now chairs the House committee looking into the July 4 floods.
"We want to gather as much information as we can," said Martinez, about his role looking into the response to the Hill Country floods, "to address the situation so that this doesn't happen again."
"I do think we do need a natural disaster override alert that, even if you had blocked your alerts, it's going to come through," said Bettencourt.
"I don't care whether it comes from the phone, or a siren," he added, "but we have to make sure we get people out of harm's way."
That is a goal universally shared.
"I hope that the people of Texas can hopefully learn from this," said Wallis. "And hopefully learn from our failures."