Burnet approves major flood buyout program with NRCS
One of the condemned homes located on Oak Street, a heavily impacted street in the floods, in Burnet, as pictured on April 6, nine months after the flood. Staff photos by Caden Senn
Long-awaited flood relief could be headed to the owners of 13 properties throughout the city of Burnet. City Council authorized a flood buyout program in tandem with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service at a Monday, April 6, special meeting.
The NRCS buyout program, entitled the Emergency Watershed Protection Program, will assist the city in purchasing properties that were heavily damaged in the July 2025 floods. Those properties are considered too prone to flood damage, and structures on them will be demolished, leaving permanent open spaces.
The EWP Program funding was estimated not to exceed $5.75 million for the 13 affected properties combined, with the NRCS funding around $4.4 million (75 percent), and the city funding around $1.35 million (25 percent) of the project. The NRCS will additionally provide $325,500 in technical assistance funding for the project.
Over a dozen of the affected property owners and their family members joined the special meeting on Monday night, waiting to hear the good news just over nine months after the floods left several of them without a home.
“We all went through a severe depression,” property owner Brenda Alman told DailyTrib. “I know that the city has worked really hard. As a matter of fact, one of the city workers brought his own loader and came down into the flood and rode us out onto the bucket of the loader.”
Alman’s home was destroyed in the July floods. She has been living in her nephew’s RV since then.
“We never had any kind of disaster, maybe twice we had two inches of water,” Alman said. “My house flooded and was six feet under, and I just want to move on from it. Hopefully I can get a home.”
City officials addressed the crowd to voice their support and sympathies in the face of continued adversity since the floods, particularly due to the lengthy timeline of recovery.
“There is absolutely no one on council that wants to see our residents delayed, in any way, in receiving what we can do,” Mayor Pro-Tem Philip Thurman said. “I just want to make sure that you understand that we’re doing everything we can, as fast as we can, and I want you to hear that from staff.”
The city originally reached out to NRCS about relief in August 2025, and only received the buyout agreement a week ago on March 31. Due to governmental procedures and practices, as well as multiple government shutdowns, the entire flood recovery process has taken significant time.
Now that the program has been approved, the city will work to hire appraisers to valuate the properties based on their pre-flood values, generate an offer for the property owners, and, if accepted, will demolish the property to create a permanently vacant lot.
An exact date for the affected property owners to receive their offers is unknown.
Assistant City Manager Keith McBurnett shared that the quickest turnaround the NRCS has seen from acceptance to full completion of the buyout, demolition, and conversion was roughly six months. He added that the city was currently at step 5 of a 24 step process.
McBurnett added that the city would be the first Texas municipality to undergo an NRCS buyout, and would likely serve as a case study for future Texas cities seeking relief.
As part of the eligibility for the EWP Program, an affected property must contain a structure threatened by additional flooding or erosion. In the case of the properties in Burnet, like those located along the southern portion of Oak Street, many lie on one of the city’s several floodways.
Of course, a flood-prone property will continue to be one so long as the waterway nearby it continues to flow, which is why the program seeks to completely raze any structures on the affected properties rather than rebuild them.
Previous flood recovery reporting
- “Burnet considers buyouts for high-flood-risk properties,” Aug. 29, 2025
- “FEMA aid available for remaining flood debris cleanup,” Oct. 21, 2025
- “Burnet removes local state of disaster following July floods; reconstruction efforts continue,” Jan. 28, 2026
- “Hamilton Creek playscape reopens as flood recovery progresses,” March 2, 2026
- “Burnet leaders talk flood recovery, bond package at state of the community,” March 5 2026