News from the South - Texas News Feed
Bills filed to require generators at Texas senior facilities
After Hurricane Beryl, Texas lawmakers push for generators at senior living facilities
“After Hurricane Beryl, Texas lawmakers push for generators at senior living facilities” was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.
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When a storm hits the Texas coast during the summer hurricane season, state Sen. Borris Miles knows among the first calls he’ll get is from a constituent letting him know power is down at an independent living complex, shutting off air conditioning for older Texans.
“‘Senator! You got these people here,’“ he said, recalling a plea from a caller when Hurricane Beryl knocked out power to an assisted living facility last summer. “‘What are we going to do?’’’
Miles, a Houston Democrat, is thankful for residents like these. But as the number of storms have increased, so has the frustration for southeast Texas lawmakers who want better solutions.
That’s why Miles and four other coastal lawmakers have filed at least six bills that would require nursing homes, assisted living facilities and even some apartments that market to the 55 and older set, to have emergency generators on site. In Texas, there are 1,193 nursing homes serving more than 86,000 patients and 2,004 assisted living facilities housing 49,574 residents.
Miles’ Senate Bill 732 would require certain low-income housing for seniors living independently to have backup power. In recent years, Miles has seen more of these facilities being built in Houston. Often living in multistory apartment buildings, residents of this type of housing do not receive care, so little information, including on their health conditions, are collected. But after a storm knocks out power, the vulnerable conditions of these residents surface, as some in wheelchairs and walkers become trapped in elevators that are inoperable, Miles said.
“We need to take care of people,” he said.
SB 481 from state Sen. Carol Alvarado, D-Houston would require emergency plans at nursing homes and assisted living facilities to include generators. Nursing homes, which as the name suggests, offer more intense medical support to patients compared to assisted living facilities, which are senior apartments that provide meals and some assistance to its residents. HB 1199 by Rep. Christian Manuel, D-Beaumont, calls for emergency generators that have the capacity to run for a minimum of 72 hours in such facilities.
“Texans know firsthand the impact of being without power, particularly in elder care facilities where the stakes are incredibly high,” Manuel said in a statement.
Rep. Suleman Lalani, D-Sugar Land, has filed HB 1467 that would require nursing homes, assisted living and independent housing for seniors to have generators. Another one of his bills, HB 863, would create a shared database of where senior independent living communities are and include each complex’s emergency plan, which is required by the state for assisted living and nursing homes. The database would be accessible to emergency response officials.
“Things happen and then people make noise and then people go quiet,” he said, remarking on past failed attempts to get a generator bill passed. “I think I have a unique opportunity and responsibility being a physician…I cannot go back and say ‘Oh,’ I will let it go.”
History of generator bills and pushback
In this century alone, Texans have seen damage and death from hurricanes Rita in 2005, Ike in 2008, Harvey in 2017 and last July’s Beryl, not to mention more freak storms like Uri’s freeze in 2021 and last year’s wildfires in the Panhandle and a windstorm in the Houston area. All have taken the power down for hours, days and in the case of Beryl, weeks.
Former state Rep. Ed Thompson of Pearland became a champion for senior facility residents following a simple spring storm in 2018 that caused a power outage in his district.
After arriving to check on a nearby senior facility, he was stunned to find an ill-prepared staff. Residents had been in a hot and dark facility for hours. When he asked a worker about the facility’s emergency plan, he was incensed that it relied mostly on calling families to pick up their relatives or for those who had no family, just sending them to the local emergency rooms.
“That lit a fire in me,” he told the Tribune last week.
Calls for generators to be required equipment, particularly at assisted living facilities, are nothing new, but bills in the last two legislative sessions have died, including Thompson’s in 2023. His legislation stalled in committee after facing opposition from the nursing care and assisted living industries, which raised concerns, mostly about generator’ costs, which is estimated to be at least $200,000 or more for a facility.
That’s why this session, Rep. Ana Hernandez, D-Houston, has filed HB 2224 which would require backup power for elevators for 48 hours after a power loss. “A significant reduction in cost,” she said. Past bills that have failed, she said, have focused on keeping the entire facility powered.
“It is inhumane to leave an elderly person abandoned without electricity in temperatures over 100 degrees for days, or even weeks,” Hernandez said. “Not having at least one elevator poses a high safety risk of elderly people being trapped on upper-level floors, prohibiting residents from escaping a fire or seeking medical care.”
It’s not clear whether the smaller price tag on such a requirement will get the buy-in of the influential long-term care industry.
The Texas Health Care Association, now headed by former state Sen. Travis Clardy, represents most of the state’s nursing homes and he says his members already have generators but any blanket requirement for equipment that has to be purchased and maintained, perhaps once every few years, is a costly state mandate.
“I think our membership would prefer to be able to see that channeled into higher quality care,” Clardy said.
Requirements during a storm
When a storm heads for Texas, the state Health and Human Services Commission sends out emergency alerts to providers, putting them on notice that their emergency plans should be ready for use in case of a loss of power. The agency also contacts the facilities directly to check on the health and safety status of residents.
Last year, some 80 long-term care facilities were without power three days after Hurricane Beryl made landfall on July 8. According to the agency, both assisted living facilities and nursing homes are always responsible for the safety of residents including during a storm.
Emergency preparedness plans, which all assisted living and nursing home facilities must have, include a list of contacts workers will call in the event of a power outage and how they will evacuate residents if they need to do so.
Since 1996, state law has required all new nursing homes to have an emergency generator that powers safety features such as emergency lighting and exit signs, fire alarm systems, nurse call systems, telephones and medication and life-saving equipment. Assisted living facilities are not required to have a generator.
That said many assisted living facilities have some type of power back up to keep food or medications refrigerated. But cooling and heating all living areas is not something that has been explicitly required for assisted living facilities or nursing homes.
Since 2016, federal law requires generators in nursing homes in new and replacement nursing homes or for all nursing homes that have indicated in their emergency plans they would rely on emergency power to provide heating and cooling or other critical systems.
However, the agency does not regulate other types of housing such as independent, senior, or congregant living facilities. These entities do not hold a state license and are not required to report any information to the state health agency.
Carmen Tilton, vice president of public policy for the Texas Assisted Living Association said her industry has been a willing collaborative partner with lawmakers on the issue of requiring generators.
After Hurricane Harvey, her organization worked with the state to to hammer out a regulation that requires facilities to keep temperatures inside no colder than 68 degrees and no hotter than 82.
“The state doesn’t say you have to check a box,” she said.
The agency leaves it to industry to determine how they will meet that standard. It could be cooling one room inside a facility with fans and portable generators and bringing residents into that one room or if assisted living facilities wanted to purchase and maintain a larger generator, they can do so without the state determining the size, or how much fuel to keep on hand at all times.
That flexibility is what the assisted living industry wants to keep in place, Tilton said.
“We recognize that everyone’s set-up is a little bit different,” she said. “We’re not fighting these bills. We’re trying to find out how to make them work under our existing regulations.”
AARP Texas, which is advocating for generators in assisted living facilities, wants more clarity in law, not just in the administrative code. The code is too often and too easily changed, said Andrea Earl, an associate state director of advocacy and outreach at AARP Texas.
“There’s no assurances in law that healthy temperatures will be maintained at all times in the residential spaces of Texas’ long-term care facilities,” she said.
Some local governments are not waiting on the legislature to act. Earlier this month, Harris County announced it was incorporating into its fire code a requirement for generators for all nursing homes and assisted living facilities located in unincorporated areas.
There’s already been pushback.
“The new mandate is problematic in many ways and would needlessly require communities to reconfigure existing systems,” said Diana Martinez, the assisted living association’s president and CEO, in a statement. “Generators are not a one-time expenditure nor are they a panacea. Generators do fail.”
Disclosure: AARP Texas and Texas Health Care Association have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.
This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2025/02/03/texas-seniors-assisted-living-nursing-homes-generators/.
The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.
News from the South - Texas News Feed
Christian Menefee will run for Houston-area congressional seat
Christian Menefee, top civil attorney for Harris County government, files for Sylvester Turner’s congressional seat
“Christian Menefee, top civil attorney for Harris County government, files for Sylvester Turner’s congressional seat” was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.
Sign up for The Brief, The Texas Tribune’s daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news.
Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee intends to run for the congressional seat left vacant by the death of Democratic U.S. Rep. and former Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, according to a Saturday filing with the Federal Election Commission.
Menefee filed his intent to run as a Democrat for the seat representing the 18th Congressional District on Saturday evening, hours after a memorial service was held in West Houston for Turner.
Menefee is 37 years old and currently serves as chief government lawyer for Texas’ most populous county.
Menefee did not respond to a request for comment on Sunday.
Elected officials who announce their candidacy in any special, general or primary election automatically resign their position if they have more than a year and 30 days left of their term, according to a provision of the Texas Constitution. But Gov. Greg Abbott has not yet declared a special election to fill Turner’s seat. Menefee was just reelected to a second four-year term in November.
The race to replace Turner will mark the second time within a year that the coveted seat is up for election. Turner filled the spot vacated by former U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, who died after a battle with pancreatic cancer after having served in the seat for decades.
Menefee was first elected to county office in Nov. 2020 at 32 years old, becoming the youngest person and first African American elected to the position, according to his office’s website.
As the chief civil lawyer for Harris County government, Menefee has fought legal battles over environmental issues and sought to address the disparate impacts of pollution on communities of color. He has also been a vocal opponent of President Donald Trump’s executive orders and signed an amicus brief in a federal lawsuit challenging Trump’s order to terminate birthright citizenship.
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This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2025/03/16/christian-menefee-congress-sylvester-turner/.
The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.
The post Christian Menefee will run for Houston-area congressional seat appeared first on feeds.texastribune.org
News from the South - Texas News Feed
Texas Wildfire: Crabapple fire now 40% contained, 9,500 acres burned
SUMMARY: The Crabapple wildfire in Gillespie County, Texas, is now 40% contained, having burned approximately 9,500 acres. Residents near the fire, which has been exacerbated by dry conditions and high winds, are urged to evacuate. Shelter is available at Zion Lutheran Church in Fredericksburg for evacuees. Although conditions have improved slightly, critical fire weather is expected to continue, with increased winds predicted for the coming days. Governor Abbott announced FEMA’s approval for financial assistance to help cover firefighting costs, with eligible reimbursements of up to 75%. Fire crews are focusing on creating containment lines and addressing hot spots.

Crews have made progress in containing the spread of the Crabapple fire in Gillespie County on Sunday. The bad news is conditions are about to get worse for those working to stop the fire’s spread.
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News from the South - Texas News Feed
LIVE: NTSB on deadly I-35 crash in Austin
SUMMARY: The NTSB is investigating a deadly multi-vehicle crash on I-35 in Austin that occurred on Thursday. During a press briefing, condolences were extended to the victims’ families, emphasizing the need for improved highway safety, as over 40,000 people die on highways annually. A multidisciplinary team, led by Investigator Kenny Bragg, is examining the crash involving a temporary work zone. They are analyzing the truck driver’s employment and medical history. The investigation will take 7-10 days, and preliminary findings will be available in the next 30 days, with a final report expected in 12 to 24 months.

The NTSB will give an update on the deadly crash on I-35 in Austin on Thursday night. Five people, including 2 children, were killed in the 17-vehicle crash.
Solomun Weldekeal Araya, 37, was arrested and charged with five counts of intoxication manslaughter and two counts of intoxication assault.
On Saturday, the NTSB said there was a connection to a company in Dallas.
FOX 4 News is a FOX-owned station serving Dallas-Fort Worth and all of North Texas.
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