Good, but it’s a long way from filing to passing.
Sen. Borris Miles
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’ House 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.”
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 answer to that question is almost certainly “no”. All of these bills were filed by Democrats, so whatever their merits they start in a hole. Note that even if they had been filed by Republicans, like former Rep. Thompson, that would be no guarantee of anything. Sure, all of these things cost money and that’s always a challenge, but the state has been sitting on a huge surplus for the last few years. It would not be hard to offer assistance or low-interest loans or whatever to help make this happen. If the Republicans in charge cared, which they do not.
As the story notes, Harris County has taken action on its own to get backup power in facilities in the unincorporated parts of the county. Mayor Whitmire has made similar promises for Houston but so far has not followed up on them. I respect and praise what all these folks are trying to do, but I’d bet on a bill blocking cities and counties from enacting this kind of regulation before I’d bet on one of their bills. As with many other things, I will be delighted to be proven wrong.