Toth Fights for Right to Build Kids' Camps in Floodplains

8/21/25 – State Representative Steve Toth, who has announced his intention to run against U.S. Congressman Dan Crenshaw in the next election cycle, posted a video on Facebook today. In it, he says prohibiting the building of youth camps in floodplains is “ridiculous.” He also worries that it would “destroy camping in Texas.”

His comment about destroying camping is a slap in the face to the parents who lost children at Camp Mystic in the July disaster on the Guadalupe River. More than 135 people died in flash flooding, many of them young girls at Camp Mystic.

Toth Video

Below is the 48-second video that Toth posted.

Text of Toth Video

Because of background noise in the video, I’ve transcribed the text below.

Toth: “HB-1 sets up legislation to protect kids from the devastating floods that took so many lives at Camp Mystic. Only the amendment that the Democrats put on it basically restricts the building of any kind of sleeping quarters in floodways, not floodplains. The kids that were killed at Mystic were actually in a floodway.”

“This is going to basically close most of the youth camps in Texas. Twenty percent of Texas is in floodplains – not floodways – floodplains. And while, yes, we want to keep camps out of floodways … the idea of trying to say that you can’t build in a floodplain is ridiculous. This is going to destroy camping in the state of Texas.“

Specifics of Bill and Amendments

HB-1 is the Youth CAMPER Act. CAMPER stands for youth Camp Alert, Mitigation, Preparedness and Emergency Response. The bill requires youth camps to develop emergency plans; train employees how to implement them; make the plans available to campers and their parents; and share them with emergency response personnel in the vicinity.

Here’s the full text of the bill as introduced, which Toth co-authored with dozens of his colleagues. For more on HB-1, see the House analysis.

Representative Donna Howard, a Democrat from Austin (another co-author of the bill) offered the amendment that Toth complained about. It says that a state license may not be issued or renewed “for a youth camp that operates one or more cabins located within a floodplain.” Elsewhere in her amendment, Howard defines “floodplain” as the FEMA 100-year floodplain.

Howard’s amendment passed 73 to 59. Toth voted against it, even though he later voted for the bill itself as amended. HB-1 passed in the House by 135 to 1. The engrossed (as amended) version now goes to the Senate.

Problems with Toth Claims

Toth makes several misleading statements in his video.

Implying All Victims in Floodway

Toth implies all fatalities occurred in cabins located in the floodway of the Guadalupe. However, news reports indicate that many of the victims were in cabins outside the floodway although I can’t find an official count at this time.

Implying It’s Safe to Build in Floodplains

Mr. Toth implies that if all the campers had slept in the floodplain instead of the floodway, they would have been safe. That’s like a drug company downplaying a dangerous side effect.

Almost six million people live in Texas floodplains. And according to USGS, Texas consistently leads the nation in flood-related fatalities. In fact, we have more than twice the number of the next nearest state.

Serious Omissions

In Mr. Toth’s black-and-white view of flood risk (Floodway is bad; floodplain is safe), he fails to disclose the considerable uncertainty, politicking, and protesting that accompanies flood maps, largely because of the way they affect developers and flood insurance. Toth should know that if he’s running for Congress.

FEMA’s maps are based on statistical probabilities and often revised after major storms to reflect new knowledge. In the case of Camp Mystic, FEMA last revised that area’s flood maps in 2011, years before Hurricane Harvey and Atlas 14. Both the floodway and floodplains will expand based on newly acquired data. So, cabins shown outside the floodway are, in all likelihood, deep into it. That’s another potentially fatal misleading statement by Toth.

*Camp Mystic in FEMA’s National Flood Hazard Layer Viewer. Cross-hatch = floodway. Aqua = 100-year floodplain. Tan = 500-year floodplain.* *Note small green type showing date of map: 2011.* *Great enlargement shows many of the cabins appear to be built in the aqua and tan areas in the upper right next to the floodway.*

“Saying You Can’t Build in a Floodplain is Ridiculous”

Mr. Toth seems to be trying to legitimize building in floodplains. It’s true that many people do. In fact, about 20% of the people in Texas (5.9 mill i on) live in 100- and 500-year floodplains. Toth seems to dismiss the risks, costs, deaths, and disruptions to the economy, like many before him.

Because of thinking like that, more people live in Texas floodplains than the populations of 30 states. And that comes at a tremendous cost to taxpayers, not just those who pay with their lives.

As a society, we spend trillions of dollars on flood mitigation, flood repairs, and flood insurance. The Joint Economic Committee (JEC) estimates that the total annual economic cost of flooding—covering infrastructure damage; lost productivity; home and commercial damage; ecosystem losses; and more—ranges between $179.8 billion and $496.0 billion in 2023 dollars.

That’s a pretty hefty share of the annual federal budget. But I guess Mr. Toth isn’t thinking that far ahead. That’s not good for a man who wants to represent you in Congress.

Posted by Bob Rehak on 8/21/2025

2914 Days since Hurricane Harvey

The thoughts expressed in this post represent opinions on matters of public concern and safety. They are protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution and the Anti-SLAPP Statute of the Great State of Texas.