- Today on "Austin InSight," with all eyes on the catastrophic wildfires in Southern California, we're talking with an expert about increasing wildfire risks here in Central Texas.

- And it's Love Austin Music Month.

We'll check in on the overall health of Austin's music scene with the music and entertainment editor at the Austin Chronicle.

"Austin InSight" starts right now, - [Announcer] Support for "Austin InSight" comes from Sally and James Gavin, and also from Suerte, Este, and Bar Toti restaurants, bringing Austin together around culinary excellence to celebrate creativity, conservation, and culture in Central Texas.

(bright music) (bright music continues) - Hi there, and thanks so much for joining us.

I'm Laura Laughead.

- And I'm Danielle Banda.

- Well, as the California wildfires rage on, evaluating the full impact will have to wait.

So far, upwards of $150 billion in damage have been reported, according to some early estimates.

Here in central Texas, forestry experts, insurance companies, and homeowners are paying close attention to the increased wildfire risk.

- Here's data from property analytics company CoreLogic, Texas ranks third among states in the number of homes with elevated risk of wildfire damage just behind California and Colorado.

Among major metropolitan areas in the US, Austin ranks fifth behind four California cities, with more than 94,000 homes at moderate or higher risk of wildfire damage.

And with that risk, there have been reports of homeowner insurance companies denying or canceling coverage in central Texas.

- Joining us now is Kari Hines of the Texas A&M Forest Service for more on the growing wildfire danger in our area.

Kari, thank you so much for joining us.

- Thanks for so much for having me.

- So, Kari, as we're all looking at these horrible scenes coming out of California, what then is the risk for similar wildfires here in Texas?

What lessons could we be learning from California's situation?

- So, it's important to take a step back and remember that no matter where you are in the world, fire, wildfire in particular burns a certain way because of three things.

We call it the fire environment triangle.

Fire will burn dictated by weather, of course, dictated by topography, and dictated by fuels.

And in California right now, where obviously what happens when three of those things line up.

In central Texas and really the state as a whole, fire is a completely natural and normal part of our ecosystems.

We have come in and suppressed it and changed the way our ecosystems look.

So by looking at the one side of the fire behavior triangle that we can influence, which is the fuels or what burns during a wildfire, we can impact and hopefully decrease the chance that the things that we don't want to burn won't burn.

- And for most of us here in central Texas, the scenes from California are conjuring painful memories of the wildfire in Bastrop in 2011.

It's officially called the Bastrop County Complex Fire, which of course burned for several weeks across more than 32,000 acres.

So what has changed since then?

Are we here at a greater risk due to climate change or drought?

Are we getting better at preventing these fires?

- Preventing, probably not.

We know that over 90% of all fires in Texas are human-caused, and that's a statistic that has stayed the same for many decades.

The number one cause of those human started fires is debris burning.

So something that I do on my own property, but there's a way that you can do it safely and efficiently to make sure it's never going to become a wildfire.

So encourage people to look at what they're doing in their own lives that could potentially cause a spark, cause heat, start a wildfire.

That's preventing it.

Then, of course, there's the second part of your question, which is reducing the risk that we have catastrophic loss, whether that's to ecosystems or whether that's to our structures.

For ecosystems, we know the state is, again, over 90% privately owned.

So if we wanna make changes on the way that fire burns through these ecosystems, that's a really expensive and logistically complicated task.

Now, the good news is, when it comes to protecting the structures, there can be some very relatively small impact, lower financial impact tasks that we can complete to protect our homes.

- And I wanna get more on that in a second.

But first, I wanna reiterate, you know, part of why California is so destructive is because it's hitting highly residential areas.

So if you think about examples of homeowners insurance policies being denied or canceled, it seems like higher risk is encroaching ever closer to more densely populated areas where the destruction is maximized.

So why is that?

- So we know that fire burns in the natural areas, of course.

We have an area called the wildland-urban interface.

That's where the nature stuff meets the human stuff.

And then we have, as you say, the urban centers, and there's a term for that, it's urban conflagration, when wildfires transition into these urban areas.

And yes, the insurance agencies have noticed, and we do have plenty of people here in Texas who are reporting that they're either not getting renewed for their insurance or they're getting rate hikes.

- And lastly, what's your advice to homeowners who may be watching, some quick tips to help them assess their risk and keep their home safe?

- So we know that the number one reason that structures burn down from wildfires, it's not these huge walls of flames.

Those are terrifying to us.

But our structures are actually fairly resistant to those.

So it's embers, little pieces of flying burning material that blow on the wind.

They go into our attic space through the vents, they go underneath wooden porches, they find firewood piles.

They find all these little nooks and crannies where they can gather and over time build up.

Both firefighters from the field and researchers agree that the biggest impacts we can make is to the structure itself and the first just five feet around it, and just the structure and the first five feet making changes there can really make the biggest difference as to whether you can survive a wildfire or not.

- Wow, this is very illuminating, and hopefully we don't ever have to use this information, but good to know in case of an emergency.

Thank you so much for sharing your expertise with us, Kari.

- Thanks so much.

(upbeat music) - From fire to flooding, along with the ever increasing cost of living in Austin, more than 11 years after the devastating Onion Creek flood, the lasting impact on former residents remains significant.

Tonight, we have an in-depth report on the City of Austin's homeowner buyout program intended to help families relocate to higher ground outside of the floodplain.

- Was it fair to homeowners?

Senior multimedia journalist Blair Waltman-Alexin has the story.

- [Blair] When Jo Garcia bought her Dove Springs home in 1994, her kids didn't even think they were in Austin anymore.

- They thought I had bought 'em an enchanted forest.

We missed the Greenbelt.

(wind swooshing) - [Blair] She lost her home and nearly her life in the historic 2013 Halloween flood.

Garcia was trying to get her grandson on the roof, when the truck they were climbing on was swept away.

- We went into the water.

It was hours, a long time.

That was the beginning of a horrible experience for us.

- [Blair] Garcia and her family survived, but their home was beyond repair.

But then came an offer from the program.

This program would buy out her home and help her cover moving expenses.

At the same time, it would bring frustration and sometimes heartbreak.

But what was this program and could Austinites need it again in the future?

(car swooshing) (water sloshing) You might be noticing a trend here.

Austin floods, a lot.

- Austin's always had flash flooding in this area.

Just because of the topography, the Gulf moisture is just ripe for that.

And I think some of the most intense rainfalls in the world can be captured in central Texas.

- [Blair] Jorge Morales is the director of the Watershed Protection Department with the City of Austin.

One of their main missions is to prevent flooding.

- We start by looking for engineering solutions, but ultimately, Onion Creek's such a large watershed that there was not a solution like that that we could do.

- [Blair] The Onion Creek watershed near Dove Springs is massive.

Researchers at UT have called it roughly the size of Austin.

And bigger watersheds mean bigger floods.

Thus, the buyout program was started.

Its goal was to purchase homes in flood-prone areas across Austin.

Onion Creek was a top priority because they were at higher risk.

The need became even more urgent After the 2013 flood decimated the neighborhood.

- We had identified 823 homes that were at risk, and the best way to protect those families was to relocate them out of the floodplain.

- [Blair] Morales says the buyback program worked like this.

First, families had to agree to the buyout.

It's a voluntary program.

Then, third party appraisers would value the home, using 2012 Travis County appraisal district figures from before the flood.

(truck lift buzzing) The city also would cover relocation costs.

- Sometimes we have to go update the appraisal just to make sure we're given the fair market value at the time of the closure.

- [Blair] The goal was to enable residents to find homes comparable to the ones they lost in the flood.

And initially, this worked.

According to data from the Watershed Protection Department, the average buyout and relocation package in 2014 totaled just over $172,000, about 18 grand more than the median home sale price in Dove Springs that year.

But the affordability crisis hit Austin hard.

Housing prices skyrocketed.

The average sale price had jumped over 6% from the year before, and Dove Springs was the more affordable part of town.

The median home price for Austin that year was roughly $295,000, a 71% increase over the average buyout.

(nail gun clicks) At the same time, not enough affordable housing was being added to the market.

According to the Texas A&M Real estate Center, the Housing affordability index dropped in Austin every year from 2012 to 2018.

All this added up to flood victims trying to navigate a housing market desert.

- For the lower income resident, the home price is still a big hurdle, burden.

- [Blair] Kijin Seong is a researcher at the Urban Information Lab at the University of Texas.

She researched the flood buyout program in the Onion Creek area.

Her research shows that even with the buyout money and the relocation funds, lower income residents still had a harder time affording a new home.

- Their median household income values were relatively lower than the average Austinite.

Even though the city of Austin offered the buyout prices, that is not matched for the new homes for them.

- [Blair] Seong says, of the 176 buyout participants they sampled, about half of them moved out of Austin.

One of the people that left Austin- - I just love this picture.

- [Blair] Was Jo.

- We found a house in Buda.

I couldn't afford to find something like what we have now in Austin.

Just no way.

- But yes, typically it wasn't close- - [Blair] Morales says the buyout program wrapped in 2017.

But concerns over flooding remain.

(thunder booming) New storm data analysis from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, shows that rainfall has intensified, and floodplains are actually larger in some areas than previously thought.

- As we know, climate's been changing and the intensities of the rainfalls have been intensifying as well.

And so we have to prepare for that.

- [Blair] While new flood plain maps are being prepared with the updated rainfall data, Morales encourages people to get flood insurance, even if they're not required to.

It remains to be seen whether more buyouts are in Austin's future.

- [Jo Voiceover] So I planted two trees in the back already.

- [Blair] Garcia doesn't live in the floodplain anymore, but she misses her old neighborhood.

And while her old greenbelt is gone, she is putting down roots here.

- I'm working on making our neighborhood, you know, what we want it to be.

(soft music) (soft music continues) - These residents certainly experienced a perfect storm of challenging circumstances following that flood.

- Yes, thanks again to multimedia journalist, Blair Waltman-Alexin for that report.

You can see more of Blair's reporting online at decibelatx.org.

And of course, the change in climate is top of mind these days as weather extremes and their consequences make multiple headlines.

This next story takes us to one of the most extreme weather locations on planet Earth: Antarctica.

- Did you know that Austin has a connection to the frozen continent?

A University of Texas professor is a world leading expert on Antarctica, and now he's been awarded the United Kingdom's Polar Medal by the Royal Family.

- It's really cool.

And exactly a year ago I was actually in Antarctica on a photography trip.

So I'm really excited to share some of what I saw, as we highlight UT geologist Ian Dalziel.

(light music) (water sloshing) (light music continues) Now, this is Antarctica, that iconic frozen landscape.

Antarctica, a continent where the conditions want to kill you.

It's the coldest, windiest and driest place on the planet.

A frozen desert with no trees, no land mammals.

So no, no polar bears.

And no people, unless you're one of the few researchers exploring Earth's final frontier, like University of Texas Professor Ian Dalziel.

He's been to this Great White alone about 50 times.

- Just the complete serenity of the place.

Apart from the raucous penguins, when you get in amongst them.

- [Laura] Penguins may be the best dressed colleagues, even if they're a bit, well, chatty.

By the way, the brown here is all, you know, penguin poop.

- The penguins are always fascinating, of course, but- - [Laura] But they smell kind of bad.

- In their thousands, they smell bad together.

They're all right when they come back from sea.

- [Laura] The UT geologist is studying how continents and oceans have changed over time.

- We were over here.

Being a British kid, I grew up on a diet of Captain Scott and Ernest Shackleton.

- [Laura] Scott and Shackleton were British explorers who led historic expeditions in Antarctica.

The Scotland natives' findings have improved our understanding of Antarctica's history and the current fragility of its ice sheet.

- The Antarctic ice cap has been losing ice much faster than any of us would've thought.

And we can make a difference.

We know how to change this by using renewable sources of energy.

But at the moment, we lack the will, apparently, as a race, the human race to do this.

- [Laura] Dalziel has been studying the continent since the 1960s, before satellite navigation.

- The wrong way for a day and a half before we realized that we were going the wrong way and retreated.

So we didn't always, in those days, know where we were.

- [Laura] On trips, he camped on the ice for months at a time in tents or stayed on ships, sometimes landing in boats like these zodiacs.

- I remember going out one time to relieve myself and coming back, realizing that I couldn't see my tent.

For a few minutes there, I couldn't see anything.

It was just white out.

- In Antarctic summer, the sun never sets and winter it never rises, six months of night.

Dalziel also did research on nearby South Georgia Island.

Rain feels a little bit like tiny little bullets hitting your face.

One of the most remote and inhospitable islands in the world where Shackleton is buried.

Behind me you can see and hear a colony of both King penguins and Gentoo penguins, along with some really adorable, though surprisingly aggressive fur seals.

- I find them fascinating.

I like watching them.

They used to chase us occasionally.

- [Laura] A fur seal chased one woman on our trip at Shackleton's grave, until our guide scared it off.

- [Guide] He'll actually come up and bite you.

And these bites can get very septic.

- [Laura] Hard to believe since their babies are so cute.

They make new friends, they want their mom, they pose for the camera, (camera clicks) all while their penguin neighbors get in collisions on the penguin highways.

And look for love.

Rejection hits the same across species.

Helping us appreciate Antarctica has been Dalziel's life's work.

In 2023 at 85, he received the prestigious Polar Medal, the United Kingdom's Highest Award for polar exploration, presented by Princess Anne of the British Royal Family.

- And she asked me where I lived, and I said, "Austin, Texas."

"Oh," she said, "but you still have a Scottish accent."

I feel very honored to have received it.

You always appreciated the opportunity that you had to be in this wild, solitary place.

- Wow, that was truly an experience of a lifetime.

And what I really love about this is that you got to make these memories with your mother.

- I did.

It was her lifelong dream to go to Antarctica and take photos, and now she's been to all seven continents.

I'm so happy for her.

And getting to go there, I don't have words for how surreal and humbling it is.

And it does give you an appreciation for why it's so important that we need to preserve this continent and leave it untamed as it should be.

And now more people than ever can actually visit Antarctica.

While Dalziel says he's happy more people can visit and learn about Antarctica today, he does warn of the dangers of mass tourism, stuff like building hotels.

He says tourism is a good thing, if it's carefully controlled.

(bright music) - January is officially Love Austin Music Month, a city of Austin sanctioned campaign.

But the question is, how much does Austin really love its local music scene.

Our city is home to more than 250 venues, and by some estimates, about 6,000 working musicians.

As much as Austin is known for its big music scene, ACL Festival, the Moody Center, and of course ACL Live, for many music lovers here, it's the truly local grassroots music community that helps define Austin as the live music capital of the world.

Now we've asked the music and entertainment editor of the Austin Chronicle, Carys Anderson to tell us more about the state of local music.

Thank you so much for being here.

We appreciate you.

- Thanks for having me.

- Absolutely.

Now we'll talk a little bit about the annual Austin Chronicle Music Awards in just a moment.

But first, you know, based on your reporting, how would you describe the overall health of Austin's local music scene in general?

- You know, it's a tough time for all working class folks in Austin.

We all know about rising rents and cost of living and stuff like that.

And that definitely does kind of pour over into the entertainment industry and the music industry.

We, of course, have, as you said, thousands of working musicians, and that's a really tight knit community and everyone does want to support each other.

But of course, you know, it takes a lot to make a living here, and playing shows every night doesn't necessarily pay the bills.

One thing I've noticed in reporting on the Red River Cultural District, which is the main strip of venues downtown, where Mohawk and Stubb's and Cheer Up Charlies, et cetera, are, they, you know, have the same struggles as any working class resident to pay the bills, to keep the lights on as a venue.

And that kind of is what leads into things, like Free Week and other festivals where it's all about just sort of trying to get community support to get people to come out and help support financially.

- Yes, I love all of those initiatives.

And there really is a robust ecosystem of support, like you said, several nonprofits, you know, SIMS, HAAM, Sonic Guild, and of course the city's music program.

But do you think that that is enough, all of those things, to help keep music alive and well?

- I mean, I think it's great that we have those things.

I've found that in a lot of times across the board in different situations and disasters and stuff like that, it really falls on the community to help each other.

These are all, as you said, nonprofits and people doing things out of the goodness of their heart.

I think it would be great if we had more government support, financial support from the city, which the city does prioritize that in its own way.

Obviously, we've seen the Live Music Fund come into play in the last few years, which awards grants to working musicians and promoters and venues to kind of help them out that way.

- You know, we're gonna turn now to the Chronicle's Annual Music Awards.

We're so excited about this, an influential and highly anticipated program happening each year.

So what do you think the purpose is in general about this awards program?

- I mean, I do think it relates to what we were talking about earlier and kind of community support and spotlighting each other.

It's a 44 year long Austin Chronicle tradition to highlight the musicians and the venues and the studios and all of that that make the city what it is.

I first consult a team of creatives throughout the industry to kind of narrow down nominees, which you'll see right now in issues of the Austin Chronicle.

We have that ballot on stands, 53 categories highlighting anything from, you know, Album of the Year and Artist of the Year to more niche things about genre and even instrument players.

We have categories about best fiddle player and best folk and bluegrass and best recording studio and producer.

Really just to kind of bring attention to the folks that make the city such a tourist destination.

And another great thing about it is, once we have the Music Awards, which happens, you know, after voting is completed, tickets to that event benefit the SIMS Foundation, which is a great organization that connects music industry players with mental health care.

- Yeah, absolutely.

All of those things are tied together, and you've gotta remind us about the schedule for voting, okay?

As well as when winners will be named, because a lot of us are gonna be on the edge of our seats for this one.

- Absolutely.

So we don't have too much time left to vote.

Voting runs through January 20th at midnight.

It's really easy to vote.

You just go online to vote.austinchronicle.org.

And a great thing about it is, since it is such a wide spanning ballot, there's 53 categories, you don't have to vote in every single category.

So if you don't feel well versed in a certain thing, it's okay to skip it.

You can just vote for your friends, if you'd like.

And then after voting closes, we have about a month of kind of downtime, before we announce the winners in the February 28th issue of the Austin Chronicle.

- Wow.

Very exciting stuff.

Now we know what we gotta do to support and so we can keep music alive in this amazing city.

So thank you so much for being here, sharing this info with us.

- Thanks for having me.

- Absolutely.

Well, that was Carys Anderson, Music and Entertainment editor at the Austin Chronicle.

(light music) (light music continues) Lastly, many American flags will fly at half staff for several more days in honor of Jimmy Carter, the 39th president of the United States.

He was the last Democratic presidential candidate to win Texas.

- Carter's presidency included a major Middle East peace agreement and crises, including the Arab oil embargo, which left Americans waiting in long lines for gasoline, and the Iran hostage crisis.

For an Austin Insight Online Extra available in the PBS app, we spoke with Dr. Jeremi Suri, professor of history and public affairs at the LBJ School of Public Affairs about Carter's legacy and an unusual Texas-focused story of political intrigue.

Again, you can find that in the PBS app.

- Here is a short excerpt.

- So one of the things that led to Carter's plummet in popularity that allowed Ronald Reagan to win Texas in 1980 and helped Republicans take control of the state was the fact that Jimmy Carter embraced conservation.

He argued, especially in the second half of his presidency, that Americans should use less oil.

For oil drillers in Texas, that's not good politics.

(bright music) - That's all for today's show.

Be sure to tune in again next week, Thursday at 7:00 PM.

- And don't forget, you can always watch each episode on your PBS app.

We'll see you then.

(bright music continues) (bright music continues) (bright music continues) - [Announcer] Support for "Austin Insight" comes from Sally and James Gavin, and also from Suerte, Este, and Bar Toti restaurants, bringing Austin together around culinary excellence to celebrate creativity, conservation, and culture in central Texas.

(light flute music)