While officers, EMS and paid firefighters have to undergo extensive training, emergency managers don’t.
HOUSTON — At the first public hearing to investigate the deadly Hill Country flood Wednesday, the state’s top emergency management official took aim at the lack of standards required to coordinate an emergency response at the local level.
“There’s no minimum qualifications to be an emergency management coordinator in the state of Texas,” said Nim Kidd, Chief of the Texas Department of Emergency Management.
“It’s whoever the county judge or whoever the mayor appoints. We’re better than that,” Kidd said.
Kidd said police officers, paid firefighters and EMS personnel, all must undergo extensive training and pass credentialing or licensing exams. But when it comes to calling the shots in an emergency, none of that applies.
“That needs to change,” Kidd said.
Kidd was the first witness to testify Wednesday before the Texas Senate and House Select Committees on Disaster Preparedness and Flooding, part of a special session called by Gov. Greg Abbott.
The gap in state requirements Kidd cited resonated with State Representative Joe Moody, a Democrat from El Paso.
“I’m probably going to remember a lot of things as we go through this experience together, those words are going to ring in my head, ‘we’re better than this,’” Moody said.
But it’s not the first time the issue has come up. After Hurricane Harvey, lawmakers passed Senate Bill 6, requiring an “emergency management work group” be established to “study and develop a proposal for enhancing the training and credentialing of emergency management directors, emergency management coordinators, and any other emergency management personnel.”
State Senator Lois Kolkhorst said she was unaware of any follow-up to the work group’s efforts.
“I’m not sure what happened after that report was issued,” said the Republican from Brenham. “It was issued during the pandemic and I think that it’s something that we probably need to look into,” Kolkhorst said.
Chief Kidd told lawmakers that there’s no time to wait given the death toll and destruction in the Hill Country.
“Now is the time to start the clock on an implementation phase for professionalizing, credentialing and certifying emergency managers in the state of Texas,” Kidd said.
No emergency management officials from Kerr County or other counties along the Guadalupe River testified Wednesday. The select committee will hold another hearing in Kerrville July 31.
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