A new winter storm and old problems raise questions about Austin leaders’ response to crises

Join The Temporary, The Texas Tribune’s day by day publication that retains readers in control on essentially the most important Texas information.

Austin officers’ fumbles throughout final week’s winter storm are prompting deeper questions on how town responds to crises — and whether or not a shakeup is required within the high echelons of town’s administration.

As main winter storms final week and in 2021 knocked out the facility for a whole bunch of hundreds of residents, metropolis officers had been sluggish to speak fundamental details about when the warmth and lights would come again on. Austin officers have additionally confronted criticism over their struggles to maintain the water working amid three boil-water notices in recent times.

Frustration with town’s response to disasters may topple Austin’s chief government, Metropolis Supervisor Spencer Cronk. The Austin Metropolis Council plans to judge Cronk’s employment Thursday.

It’s a stark transfer from newly elected Austin Mayor Kirk Watson, who introduced the analysis weeks after telling Texas Tribune editor in chief Sewell Chan that he had confidence in Cronk. In a Monday interview with the Tribune, Watson wouldn’t say whether or not he’s misplaced that confidence however pointed to “perennial” issues which have continued in Austin, like town’s incapacity to speak with residents throughout instances of crises.

“There’s actually not way more fundamental than maintaining the water working, maintaining the warmth on, maintaining the lights on and speaking together with your residents,” Watson mentioned.

In a prolonged assertion Tuesday, Cronk apologized for the delays speaking with residents and vowed that town would make enhancements. However he additionally famous there’s solely a lot town can do to organize for catastrophic climate.

“As a neighborhood and as a wider society, we’re solely simply starting to grasp the damaging influence that these excessive climate occasions may have on our lives within the years to come back,” Cronk mentioned. “No quantity of preparation or planning can solely protect us from the damaging facet of nature, and you will need to be clear about our limitations and to work collectively to seek out options.”

Final week’s storm and its results had been unusually extreme as massive quantities of ice accrued on timber, which tumbled below the burden and fell on energy traces all around the metropolis.

However as Watson and a Metropolis Council with an array of contemporary faces evaluation their first main disaster collectively, town’s high officers as soon as once more discover themselves making an attempt to resolve why town botched its response to a major climate occasion — particularly when town had already identified related issues throughout earlier disasters.

“This storm, to a level, took us unexpectedly, nevertheless it’s not the primary time we’ve handled a significant freeze,” mentioned council member Zohaib “Zo” Qadri, who gained his seat in a December runoff election. “So I perceive that folks would have anticipated us to be higher ready.”

After Winter Storm Uri in 2021, Austin officers had already discovered that they needed to talk higher with the general public throughout extreme climate occasions. A November 2021 report by town auditor confirmed that poor communication with residents was a significant drawback throughout that storm, when the state’s electrical grid operator misplaced management of the facility provide and tens of millions of Texans misplaced electrical energy.

The report additionally famous that town had reviewed its response within the aftermath of earlier disasters — and that it had didn’t enact a few of the suggestions that emerged then.

The town had made progress on preparations for future winter storms, ​​Assistant Metropolis Supervisor Rey Arellano wrote in a January 2022 memo, like holding month-to-month conferences on how to reply to extreme climate occasions. However after one more catastrophe and botched response, metropolis leaders are prone to evaluation what suggestions had been made after the 2021 storm and whether or not they had been applied.

Disaster communications proved to be an issue as soon as once more final week when residents waited greater than 24 hours after energy outages started to listen to an replace from native officers in regards to the severity of the state of affairs.

For Austin Metropolis Council member Alison Alter, a vocal critic of Cronk, the basis of town’s response issues throughout main crises lies in administration. She pointed to the findings of a city-commissioned report launched final month probing issues at Austin Water that led to a few boil-water notices since 2018 and prompted the top of the city-owned water utility to resign.

That report blamed issues on the utility on “organizational circumstances that embrace construction and administration, human assets, communication (inner and exterior to Austin Water), and capital enchancment processes.”

Throughout a cellphone interview final week, Alter mentioned town’s response to the most recent freeze proves as soon as extra that “our methods for responding haven’t been as much as the problem.”

“As a lot as a number of of us have tried to make town construction be taught from every occasion, this occasion reveals that these classes haven’t caught,” she mentioned.

The newest disaster has additionally spurred some chatter on social media about Austin’s “council-manager” type of authorities — additionally known as a “weak mayor” system — and whether or not it ought to change.

Beneath the present system, the mayor and Metropolis Council appoint a metropolis supervisor to supervise town’s day-to-day operations, its 14,000 staff and its multibillion-dollar finances — a type of authorities present in different main Texas cities together with Dallas, San Antonio, Fort Value and El Paso. However in main cities like New York and Houston, these powers and tasks fall to the mayor.

Austin voters rejected a poll initiative in 2021 to maneuver Austin to a “robust mayor” fashion of presidency, during which extra decision-making energy would relaxation with the mayor somewhat than a metropolis supervisor. Proponents of the initiative argued the proposal would make metropolis authorities extra accountable to voters, whereas opponents mentioned it will focus an excessive amount of energy within the mayor’s workplace. (Many cities adopted the council-manager type of authorities within the twentieth century partly as a strategy to insulate the day-to-day capabilities of metropolis authorities from politics.)

Watson reiterated his help for a “robust mayor” system this week, arguing that voters may maintain the mayor accountable on the poll field in the event that they felt town wasn’t being run nicely.

“I believe we have to have a system the place the individual on the high might be held accountable,” Watson advised the Tribune. “Now, we don’t have that. However meaning the accountability that I’ve as mayor is to verify we’re doing the sorts of taking a look at these points in order that we will maintain any individual accountable if that’s what must occur.”

Cronk isn’t the one member of town forms catching warmth. Metropolis Council member Mackenzie Kelly known as for an audit of Austin Power’s response to final week’s winter storm — together with whether or not the city-owned energy supplier has stayed on high of efforts to trim timber so as to stop them from falling on energy traces.

If town develops a popularity of incompetence when responding to extreme climate occasions, some fear it may develop into a deterrent to new residents and employers.

“The thought of shutting your metropolis down for per week is, from an financial improvement standpoint, madness,” mentioned Steven Pedigo, director of the College of Texas at Austin’s LBJ City Lab, which focuses on city coverage. “It’s not good for enterprise attraction or enterprise retention, and it’s for positive not excellent for native companies.”

However whereas cities have to do a greater job of making ready for excessive climate — significantly as local weather change intensifies different forms of extremes like warmth and intense flooding that take a look at infrastructure — Pedigo mentioned cities aren’t getting a lot assist from state officers, who typically shrink back from addressing the impacts of local weather change.

“What occurred in Austin this week is a metaphor for the city development challenges that the state is going through,” Pedigo mentioned.

All of that serves as a reminder that Austin’s days as a sleepy faculty city are gone — and that its residents anticipate it to function on the stage of different large cities.

“Huge cities can function nicely, significantly cities which have entry to such prosperity and the power to afford to do good issues for its folks, and particularly cities which can be inventive,” Watson mentioned. “I really feel fairly strongly that the truth that now we have grown quickly and that we’re now a giant metropolis is just not an excuse for not offering the providers that the residents ought to have the ability to anticipate.”

Disclosure: The College of Texas at Austin has been a monetary supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan information group that’s funded partly by donations from members, foundations and company sponsors. Monetary supporters play no function within the Tribune’s journalism. Discover a full record of them right here.