Texas Legislators Blocked Flood Protection Laws Despite Deadly 2025 Disaster

Crosses mark the spot where Beth and Hutch Bryan and Martha Crawford stayed during the deadly floods on July 4, 2025, in Kerr County, Texas. The sound of construction machinery echoed as Kylie Nidever walked past properties still scarred months after floodwaters ravaged the area. Her home in the Bumble Bee Hills neighborhood remained untouched by last year’s disaster—the deadliest flood in Texas history.

Nidever, 35, grew up playing in a nearby creek that fed the Guadalupe River. Yet she was stunned by her neighbors’ eagerness to rebuild in a subdivision long known for its flood risks. She questioned why officials permitted construction in danger zones and whether leaders would act now to prevent future tragedies.

“Is somebody going to come in and stop us? If it happens again and it’s worse next time, people will die in this neighborhood.”

After last summer’s disaster, some Texas legislators criticized local officials for failing to install flood warning sirens and for a chaotic emergency response. Others dismissed the storm as an unstoppable force. But lawmakers overlooked the core issue: They have repeatedly rejected bills that could have protected residents in the state’s most flood-prone areas, a ProPublica and The Texas Tribune investigation found.

The majority of the 137 confirmed deaths across five counties during the July 4 tragedy occurred in places the federal government had flagged as high-risk for flooding—areas where lawmakers had the power to restrict development but chose not to.

The newsrooms analyzed nearly 60 years of legislation and identified over five dozen flood safety bills rejected by state lawmakers. Experts said the most critical measures could have saved lives by halting construction in the most dangerous zones, including where people later perished on July 4.

Kylie Nidever’s home in Bumble Bee Hills was among the few spared by the floodwaters. “Had the state enacted any of that legislation, we might not have had the excruciating loss,” said Char Miller, a Texas environmental historian now teaching at Pomona College in California. “The continued inability of the state to pass legislation to protect its citizens means it’s not doing the one thing it’s supposed to do, which is defend the health and safety of those who call Texas home.”

Lawmakers also failed to pass measures that would have:

• Required buildings in flood-prone areas to be elevated;
• Blocked high-risk structures, such as solid waste facilities, from being built near water bodies;
• Granted local leaders more authority to restrict unsafe development.

Texas has more buildings in flood-prone areas—at least 650,000 structures—than any state except Florida, according to ProPublica.