Texas lawmakers are today headed back to the spot where Hurricane Harvey roared ashore as part of an interim hearing looking at state readiness efforts, but those who are assisting with disaster recovery say, nothing could have prepared for this.
"You can do lots of preparation and planning, but nature often overtakes our best abilities to cope," Beth Tatum with the Coastal Bend Disaster Recovery Group tells Newsradio 1200 WOAI.
Members of the House Land and Resource Management Committee will be reviewing the General Land Office's role in recovery efforts. They'll be the ones that will be doling out some $5 billion in federal funding, which was pledged to Texas by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
There's growing frustration with how slowly that cash has come.Tatum says recovery efforts are happening, but not as quickly as they had hoped, especially to the poorer parts of the coastal bend, where storm insurance is less likely to be in a family's budget.
"Especially in the effort to rebuild homes that were not insured," she explains. "It's painfully slow to get assistance to those folks."
There are also concerns about transparency from the GLO. The office has promised to put out quarterly reports on their website. So, until those funds start flowing, groups like the Coastal Bend Disaster Recovery group are relying on private funds."
People across the U.S. are generous and funds are still coming in, so we're hopeful we'll be able to help some folks."