Texas Disaster Recovery & Property Resources
Recovery information for Texas homeowners, landowners, agricultural families, and communities, with direct links to official State of Texas resources.
Free Texas Resource · Official Sources · Continually Reviewed
Disaster recovery in Texas runs through several organizations at once, and they do genuinely different jobs. Emergency response and damage reporting sit with one agency. Long-term rebuilding money runs through another. Your property tax after the damage is decided by your county appraisal district. Nobody hands you a single map on the worst week of your life.
This page separates those roles so you can work out who to contact first, and links to each organization's own current information rather than restating it here.
Call 911. This page is educational and is not an emergency service, a reporting system or an application. Texas Homestead Law does not administer any recovery program, does not determine eligibility, and cannot tell you whether your property or county qualifies for anything.
Who does what
- Texas Division of Emergency Management (TDEM): a state agency that coordinates the state emergency management program, works with local jurisdictions and federal partners during and after a disaster, and administers state and federal recovery and hazard mitigation programs. TDEM also encourages affected Texans to report property damage after a disaster, which helps inform damage assessments.
- Texas General Land Office (GLO): the state agency that administers long-term federal rebuilding funds through its Community Development and Revitalization program. This is where State Action Plans, public comment periods and most multi-year recovery programs live.
- Your county: the appraisal district decides property-tax questions, the county clerk holds your deed records, and your county's emergency management office is the local point of contact. None of this is decided at state level.
- Federal agencies: HUD allocates the block-grant funding the GLO administers, and FEMA programs run through the disaster declaration process coordinated with the state.
Long-term recovery funding through the GLO
Most large-scale rebuilding money in Texas arrives as Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) funding. HUD allocates it to the state; the GLO administers it.
Two things about this money surprise people. First, it is slow, these are multi-year programs tied to specific declared disasters, not immediate assistance. Second, it is disaster-specific: funds allocated for one storm cannot simply be redirected to another.
The GLO is responsible for developing the State Action Plan for each disaster, which sets out the proposed activities for long-term recovery and restoration of housing, infrastructure, planning and economic development in the affected areas. As the state receives more funding, reallocates funds or changes activities, amendments to the plan are submitted to HUD for approval. Once HUD approves an amendment, the plan as amended becomes the applicable State Action Plan.
That amendment process matters to you more than it sounds like it should, because it is where the public gets a say.
Texas General Land Office, recovery contact
- Recovery hotline
- 1-844-893-8937 (toll free)
- CDR@Recovery.Texas.Gov
This is contact information for the Texas General Land Office, not for Texas Homestead Law. When contacting the GLO about a recovery matter, its guidance asks that you include your full name, address and county.
How public comment actually works
Recovery is one of the few areas of Texas property policy where an ordinary person can put a comment directly in front of the agency spending the money, and where that agency is federally required to respond before proceeding.
The sequence generally runs:
- A disaster occurs and is declared.
- Recovery or mitigation funding is allocated to the state.
- The GLO drafts a State Action Plan, or an amendment to an existing one.
- A public notice may be issued and the draft posted.
- A public comment period may open, commonly 30 days for a substantial amendment.
- Comments are submitted by an official deadline through the process the notice specifies.
- The GLO responds to comments before the plan or amendment goes to HUD for approval.
Not every recovery action carries a public comment opportunity, and the deadlines, submission addresses and comment periods differ from notice to notice. Nonsubstantial amendments, for instance, follow a different path from substantial ones. Always read the issuing agency's current notice rather than assuming a previous pattern still applies.
Property tax after damage
Texas law provides a temporary exemption for qualified property physically damaged by a disaster under Tax Code Section 11.35. The essentials, as the Comptroller describes them:
- The property must be at least 15 percent damaged by a disaster and located in a governor-declared disaster area.
- An application must be filed no later than 105 days after the governor declares the disaster area.
- Qualified property includes tangible personal property used for income production, real property improvements and certain manufactured homes.
- The chief appraiser assigns a damage assessment rating of Level I, II, III or IV, and that rating determines what percentage of the appraised value is exempted.
- The exemption is prorated for the remainder of the tax year and expires on January 1 of the first tax year in which the property is reappraised.
A separate provision, Tax Code Section 11.351, covers an improvement to a residence homestead completely destroyed by fire, where the dwelling was habitable immediately before the fire and remains uninhabitable for at least 30 days afterward. That application is due no later than 180 days after the date of the fire, and the exemption applies only in the tax year the fire occurred.
There is also a longer-running protection worth knowing: a homeowner whose qualified residential structure is rendered uninhabitable or unusable by casualty, wind or water damage may continue receiving the residence homestead exemption while rebuilding, subject to conditions on timing and intent to return. In a governor-declared disaster area, that window is longer than the ordinary one.
The 105-day and 180-day deadlines are short, and they run from the declaration or the fire rather than from the day you are ready to deal with paperwork.
Everything local runs through your county
Recovery paperwork lands in county offices. The exemption application above goes to your appraisal district. Proving you own the property means the county clerk's records. Local damage reporting and emergency management are county functions.
Our county system covers all 254 Texas counties and links to each county's official offices:
- County appraisal district: disaster exemption applications, appraisal questions, protests.
- County clerk: deeds, plats and recorded instruments proving ownership.
- Tax assessor-collector: tax bills, payment questions, deferral information.
- Property search: parcel records and appraised values.
- County government: local emergency management and commissioners court.
We do not publish which counties qualify for which recovery program. Eligibility is disaster-specific, changes as declarations and amendments are approved, and is established only by the administering agency's current published information.
Land, water and agricultural recovery
Damage to land raises questions a homeowner's checklist does not cover. Flooding moves watercourses and can affect boundaries. Buyout and acquisition programs turn private tracts into open space or flood storage permanently. Agricultural operations face separate federal disaster programs. Heir property complicates every assistance application that asks for proof of ownership.
- Texas water rights and land, water & development
- Agriculture, rural land & working lands
- USDA Farm Service Agency programs, which include disaster programs through local FSA offices
- Heirs, probate & family land often the blocker on proving ownership
- Conservation easements and long-term land commitments
- Eminent domain relevant where public projects follow recovery
- Deed fraud & real property theft a real risk for damaged and vacant property
Following recovery updates
Recovery information goes stale faster than almost anything else on this site. Comment periods close. Application windows open and shut. Action plan amendments supersede one another.
Rather than reprint announcements here, we track this subject under the update category Disaster Recovery & Mitigation, covering GLO public notices: State Action Plan amendments, public comment periods, program announcements, application windows, official deadlines and major federal or state recovery changes affecting Texas property owners.
Any time-sensitive item we publish carries its date, the issuing agency, its current status, a short plain-language summary and a link to the official source. Anything past its deadline is marked as closed rather than left sitting where it looks current. If you need to know what is open right now, the agency's own notices page is always more current than any summary.
The key takeaway
Three different organizations hold three different pieces of your recovery: TDEM for emergency coordination and damage reporting, the GLO for long-term rebuilding funds, and your county appraisal district for what happens to your property tax. Contacting the wrong one costs time you may not have.
Watch the clock on the property-tax side in particular. The disaster exemption application is due within 105 days of the governor's declaration, and the fire provision within 180 days of the fire.
Sources & references
The Texas General Land Office Disaster Recovery section publishes the recovery hotline and email address and describes the CDBG-DR funding the agency administers. Its Action Plans page explains that the GLO is the responsible entity for developing the State Action Plan for each disaster, that amendments are submitted to HUD for approval as funding or activities change, and that an approved amended plan becomes the applicable State Action Plan. The Public Notices page carries current notices, their publish dates, comment deadlines and submission instructions.
The Texas Division of Emergency Management Recovery division describes its work with local jurisdictions, state agencies and federal partners on recovery processes, and its Disasters page explains the declaration process and TDEM's coordination with FEMA Region 6 on damage assessments. TDEM's Resources for Texans page collects assistance information for individuals.
The Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts publication Texas Property Tax Exemptions (96-1740, January 2026) is the source for the temporary exemption for qualified property damaged by disaster under Tax Code Section 11.35, including the 15 percent damage threshold, the 105-day application deadline, the Level I–IV damage assessment ratings and the expiration on reappraisal; for the fire provision under Section 11.351 and its 180-day deadline; and for the continuation of a residence homestead exemption during rebuilding under Section 11.135.
Recovery programs, deadlines, comment periods and eligibility change frequently and without notice. Each agency is the authority on its own programs. If any statement here conflicts with a current official source, the official source controls.