Recovery efforts in Central Texas are being shaped by lessons learned from past disasters, as communities work to rebuild after the July 4 flood.<\/p>\n
Years before the flooding, Hurricane Harvey forced communities along the Texas coast to rebuild, prompting local leaders in Aransas County to bring in experienced disaster recovery experts.<\/p>\n
Now, Kerr County is taking a similar approach.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I got the call, I knew the good Lord wanted me here. I don\u2019t know why. I still don\u2019t know why, but I\u2019m going to do whatever he calls me to do,\u201d said William Whitson.<\/p>\n
Whitson, a former federal employee and city manager in Florida, first came to Texas in 2017 following Hurricane Harvey. He spent more than two years helping Aransas County rebuild, including the hard-hit community of Rockport.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were probably looking at a 10-to-15-year recovery based on the conditions on the ground when we got there. And I think because of the efforts that our team made along with all the other partners in the area, not just us, but we helped them accelerate their efforts, and I think they were back on their feet in about five to seven years,\u201d Whitson said.<\/p>\n
Now, thanks to an anonymous donation, Whitson and his partner, Kim Foutz, are working full-time in Kerrville to support recovery efforts.<\/p>\n
Both former city managers, they are serving as consultants for the Kerr Together long-term recovery group.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know, usually outside agencies and that type of thing, they\u2019re just looking at it and saying, ok, what do we have to do to piece this back together? That\u2019s not the view. The view is, how do we evaluate this? How do we become better and also more resilient and more economically strong?\u201d Foutz said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s how local government managers are trained,\u201d Whitson added.<\/p>\n
Whitson said the team is applying lessons from Harvey, including the importance of reliable communication systems. In Kerr County, they helped fast-track a $14.7 million grant application in about three weeks.<\/p>\n
The funding is being used to develop a new alert system expected to be completed by early next year.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing able to read these rain gauge data, the stream flow data, the weather data live or in five-minute increments from those remote areas that this county has is going to be a lifeline and will help them in future situations,\u201d Whitson said.<\/p>\n
He said improved data access will give communities more time to respond in future disasters.<\/p>\n
Whitson noted that each recovery effort is different, but Kerr County has benefited from strong private support. Donations have helped create a community-driven approach, rather than relying solely on federal or state agencies.<\/p>\n
The effort now includes a committee system with more than 200 local participants.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have the leaders of hospitals and local businesses on these committees, and they can have input directly into the plan and mold it into a way that works best for their community. Now we have private sector resources that we bring there as well. That\u2019s why we\u2019re sitting in the one-stop shop because of those private sector funds that flowed in this disaster that didn\u2019t flow in any other one,\u201d Whitson said.<\/p>\n
Whitson said the work is expected to continue for about another year. He is also preparing a report based on the recovery effort, intending to encourage legislative changes, including reducing barriers to funding after disasters.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s best of the locals to build the plan. They know the damage. They know what the needs of the community are and what the vision of their community is, and then you can match the resources to that plan, have the state, federal government and private sector involved in that collaboration. And then once the plan is ready to go, let\u2019s do it,\u201d Whitson said.<\/p>\n
While recovery is ongoing, Whitson said Kerr County\u2019s progress shows what is possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Recovery efforts in Central Texas are being shaped by lessons learned from past disasters, as communities work to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":250394,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[4543,27,29,28],"class_list":{"0":"post-250393","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-texas","8":"tag-central-texas-flood","9":"tag-texas","10":"tag-texas-headlines","11":"tag-texas-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250393\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}