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Harvey’s lesson: Government matters, but it must work better

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Yes, government matters.

Harvey’s wrath, and Houston’s response to it, taught us a lot about our neighbors, our faith communities, our leaders. But it also has taught us about the importance of institutions, regulations and the need for policies crafted with forethought and courage.

What our government should do, and how much, is a constant debate that often disintegrates into partisan talking points and ideology. A historic flood makes flesh of philosophy.

We may applaud the performance of government on some levels, including the heroic response of first responders and the tough, bipartisan calls of Harris County Judge Ed Emmett and Mayor Sylvester Turner to hunker down.

But let’s start asking some tough questions.

What more, for instance, could Police Chief Art Acevedo and his officers have done to save people if his department weren’t 2,000 officers short?

What could have been done to safeguard chemical plants and avoid potential disasters such as the explosions at the Arkema plant in Crosby, which has already drawn a lawsuit by first responders who say they were overcome by fumes?

As my Houston Chronicle colleagues have reported, such plants operate under loose federal and state regulation, and after a 2013 ruling by then-Attorney General Greg Abbott, Texans don’t even have a right to know what dangerous chemicals are being stored in their neighborhoods.

The Chronicle’s Mark Collette and Matt Dempsey have reported that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality are all poorly equipped to inspect plants damaged during Harvey or to look for longterm problems because they are “understaffed, underfunded and don’t account for scores of dangerous chemicals.”

“Who is going to oversee any of this?” Jordan Barab, a former top OSHA official asked in a recent Chronicle story. “The answer is no one.”

Consider this from that same report: President Donald Trump’s budget cut OSHA enforcement spending — including inspections — but a House budget committee in July went even further, proposing cuts of $14.7 million, or more than 7 percent. The agency already was unable to inspect most facilities.

In Harris County, we should ask what more officials could have done to prevent flooding. More specifically, whether the devastating, sustained flooding we have seen in neighborhoods downstream from controlled reservoir releases could have been avoided. What if flood control officials had demanded protections, federal funding to pay for it, and tried to curb development in the area around Addicks and Barker?

‘Chilling accuracy’

The answers seem clear after the Dallas Morning News last week cited a Harris County Flood Control District report from two decades ago, which predicted with “chilling accuracy” reality experienced by thousands of homeowners.

The report, which concluded the aging reservoir system was severely insufficient, proposed a $400 million fix that could have pushed water toward the Houston Ship Channel more quickly. It also suggested buying out properties at risk and regulating development in the area.

None of it happened. The report was mostly forgotten. Over time, land on the western fringes of the reservoirs filled with rows of brick homes.

Today, many sit mangled and destroyed — a preventable outcome that haunts Arthur Storey.

In a surprisingly candid interview with the Dallas paper, Storey, who was flood control director at the time of the 1996 report, said he regretted that he didn’t do more to pressure officials to act, and that he was “not smart enough, bold enough to fight the system.”

Storey didn’t return my call on Friday, perhaps because he was busy tending to his home, which flooded as well. The longtime public servant, who retired from the county in 2015 at age 78, was clear in his assessment to the Dallas paper:

“This, what we have before us, is a massive engineering and governmental failure. I’m both angry about it and embarrassed about it.”

Storey’s honesty is commendable, and heartbreaking.

But no one person is to blame for shortsighted policies. Forward-thinking, long-term investment requires buy-in from every level of government.

It also requires something else: Buy-in from you and me.

We, the people served, must acknowledge that, yes, government matters. Yes, there are some things government can solve or just make better.

Start at the polls

We can’t keep electing people openly contemptuous of the government institution that signs their paycheck. Their obstruction is not helpful, or cost-effective. We can’t keep demanding ever-lower taxes without regard to the cruel consequences.

As citizens, we have a duty to look beyond our own self-interests, to support investment that protects our neighbors, and to hold elected leaders accountable for doing what’s right.

If you’re looking for a place to start, here’s one:

The U.S. House overwhelmingly approved on Friday $15 billion in aid for Harvey victims throughout southeast Texas. But four of our fellow Texans voted against it: U.S. Reps. Joe Barton of Ennis, Jeb Hensarling of Dallas, Sam Johnson of Richardson and Mac Thornberry of Clarendon.

They’re all Republicans, but they have something else in common — none of them represents counties in the direct path of the storm. lisa.falkenberg@chron.com twitter.com/ChronFalkenberg