AUSTIN (THE TEXAS TRIBUNE) – In legislative hearings after last year’s July 4 floods, the state’s emergency management chief made some recommendations to state lawmakers. They included empowering the agency to vet volunteers who show up after disasters and establishing clearer guidelines for local officials to decide whether to do autopsies during mass casualty events.
There was another glaring problem that Texas Division of Emergency Management Chief Nim Kidd told legislators about: Unlike paid firefighters and police officers, the state has no required training for all local emergency management coordinators, the people tasked with planning for and helping to lead the response to disasters.
“I do think it’s time that we as a state decide there needs to be a baseline for people that get appointed into that position,” Kidd told lawmakers at a July 23 hearing focused on the floods.
Nine months later, in April, he told another state committee investigating the disaster: “To be an emergency management coordinator in the state of Texas, you need the signature of a mayor or judge. Period. That needs to change.”
Two bills meant to address that issue, and others Kidd highlighted, failed in the final special legislative session of 2025. And as the one-year anniversary of the disaster arrives, that lack of action means that leaders in Texas’ 254 counties, as well as all of its cities, can hire people with no formal training in the field.
After the floods, which left more than 130 people dead, state lawmakers required flood warning sirens to be installed in areas struck by the summer disaster that also have histories of flooding. In Kerr County, where the vast majority of deaths happened, six of the first eight planned sirens are in place.
Legislators also passed two camp safety bills, championed by the parents of 27 girls who died at Camp Mystic, which include requirements for camps to have more robust emergency plans and move cabins from flood-prone spots by rivers. Nearly 300 camps have been licensed under the new regulations, according to state data.
Legislators’ next opportunity to address Kidd’s recommendations — if they choose to — happens in January when they return to the Capitol for their regular session.
“We have work to do next session,” state Sen. Charles Perry, a Republican from Lubbock who authored the failed bill to address licensing, said in the April hearing. “We just don’t have to start from ground zero.”
Absent leaders
Then-Kerr County Emergency Management Coordinator William “Dub” Thomas was notably absent early on the morning of July 4. He’d been feeling badly since July 2 and taken the day off on July 3, according to his testimony to lawmakers. Legislative investigators later found no evidence that a representative of Kerr County dialed into a state emergency preparation call on July 3 to learn about potential storms over the holiday weekend.
County Judge Rob Kelly was at his Austin-area lake house for the holiday, he testified. According to the county’s emergency plan, in their absences, the judge’s role should have fallen to the most senior county commissioner, while the coordinator’s role should have fallen to someone designated by the judge.
The state legislative investigation concluded that the state’s “alerts and warnings effectively were disregarded by Kerr County officials, who were substantially absent from duty, and who failed to conduct effective local emergency coordination relating to summer camps in advance of the storm. As flooding began, the county judge was away and unaware, and the county’s emergency coordinator was sick and asleep in bed with no delegate at the watch while the entire tragedy unfolded.”
Amid a series of increasingly urgent National Weather Service alerts that night, a 911 call came in from upstream on the Guadalupe River’s south fork at 2:52 a.m., warning the river was rising high and fast. The flooding started its precipitous rise around that time in Hunt, where the north and south forks of the river meet. It peaked around 6:45 a.m. downstream in Kerrville, the county seat, according to US Geological Survey data.
As the morning wore on, county law enforcement helped lead the response. Text messages among a group that included a number of Sheriff’s Office officials, obtained through an open records request by the Texas Newsroom and shared with The Texas Tribune, reveal some issues they faced. The text thread included Thomas.
By 7:18 a.m., the sheriff’s office leaders and others were working through where to send evacuees. At 9:15 a.m., they were texting about where to stage media and, at 9:40 a.m., where to stage resources. Later in the morning, they considered whether to set up a hotline or email for families to report missing relatives.
“It’s very common in the middle of a response for there to be a lot of back and forth and for people to be confused where resources are, how things are changing and evolving in the moment,” said Samantha Montano, an associate professor of emergency management at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy. “That’s really why you want to have an emergency manager, somebody who is overseeing all of that and funneling correct and updated information out to the people who need it.”
According to his resume, Thomas had spent much of his career moving up the ranks of the Texas Highway Patrol and had spent less than two years working as regional preparedness manager with the local American Red Cross when he took the Kerr County job in 2015. Thomas had completed various state and federal training courses related to emergency management before the flood, county records showed.
Thomas retired from his post at the end of March, according to county records. Kelly, the county judge, did not seek reelection this year.
County commissioners hired Shorey Harmon, the Texas Division of Emergency Management’s liaison officer for Kerr and Bandera counties, to replace Thomas.
Harmon had earlier served in the U.S. Navy and worked for Texas Parks and Wildlife and Texas A&M Forest Service, according to his resume, then became a TDEM cadet in 2022 — attending what the resume described as “the first-ever emergency management academy in the United States for training in all-hazards emergency preparedness and response.”
A developing field
The emergency management field is relatively young, with beginnings tied to Cold War concerns about nuclear war, said Romeo Lavarias, lecturer at the University of Central Florida’s emergency management program. The field has developed because emergency management became more complicated and expensive, involving much more than the immediate disaster response, Lavarias said.
A recent study from Argonne National Laboratory found that an emergency management director’s professional background could matter greatly. The study found most local directors had worked in the field more than 10 years and that nearly a third of them were between 50 and 59 years old.
As one person told the researchers: “In our agency, the director position has historically been occupied with people with no formal training in emergency management (myself included).”
In 2024 in Florida, lawmakers passed a new law for all county managers to have minimum emergency training.
“We haven’t got a choice anymore,” Lavarias said. “With the nature of hazards we’re dealing with here, their drastic impacts on everyone, the complications of politics, of social (issues) and economics, it’s going to take a heck of a lot more than what we’ve got going for us.”
UPDATE: The Texas Department of Public Safety said that Robert Gomez was found on Friday after a CLEAR Alert was issued for him earlier in the day.
RUSK – As conditions across the region begin to dry out, East Texas fire officials are warning people to be careful before lighting fireworks this holiday weekend. According to the Texas A&M Forest Service, a five-acre fire was put out in Upshur County.
UPDATE: The search for a Smith County woman wanted in relation to a May dog theft and animal cruelty case has ended after she turned herself in on Thursday, officials confirm. According to the Smith County Sheriff’s Office, Susan Grafft turned herself in for her warrants of theft of property and cruelty to non-livestock animals a month after they were issued.
NEW YORK (AP) — Most U.S. stocks rose on Thursday, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average rallied to another record, but more drops for computer chip companies and other winners of the artificial-intelligence boom kept indexes mixed.
TYLER – Here’s a reminder from the Tyler Police Department in regards to the July 4th holiday. It is a violation of a City of Tyler ordinance to detonate fireworks inside the city limits. You could receive a citation, and your fireworks could be seized. 
SMITH COUNTY – Emergency crews responded to a crash involving a motorcycle and a van Thursday morning in Smith County. The collision occurred at the intersection of East Northeast Loop 323 and FM 14 shortly before 8 a.m., according to Smith County ESD No. 2 spokesperson Nikki Simmons. Injuries have been reported, but officials have not identified those involved, the extent of the sustained injuries or announced how many people were injured in the crash. The crash’s cause is still being looked into.
