Source: World Central Kitchen / Flickr
After the flood comes the finger-pointing.
Thirteen days on from the catastrophic flash floods in Texas, there are plenty of questions being asked of state, local, and federal officials — and of what they knew the risks to be before the rains came.
Financial professionals are asking questions of their own. Specifically, why the now all-too-evident flood risks to Kerr County — where the overflowing waters of the Guadalupe River wreaked the most havoc — were not properly disclosed to those invested in the region. At fiscal year-end 2024, Kerr County had $32.5mn of bonds outstanding. The City of Kerrville had US$100mn outstanding, while less than three weeks before the floods, Kerrville Public Utility Board (KPUB) issued US$74mn of power supply revenue bonds, intended to finance a new natural gas plant.
The associated offering documents had little to say about flood risks beyond boilerplate warnings on extreme weather. To some, this isn’t good enough.
“We all know now what Kerr County was seeking from the state in terms of financial assistance for the early warning systems. Everyone knew that they were a flood risk. We knew there was an event in 1987 — and none of this shit was in the disclosure documents to investors,” says Tom Doe, CEO at Municipal Markets Analytics, an independent research firm.
Become a Member to read the rest.
Become a paying member to get access to this post and other member-only content.
UpgradeA membership gets you:
- Access to In-Depth Features
- Podcast Transcripts
- Access to Adaptation10 Series
- Access to S&P 500 Climate Physical Risk Signals
- Early Bird Access to Events
