News from rural America.

Debt collectors may soon be knocking on doors in Kentucky over unpaid utility bills, a new Colorado law could help homeowners facing high property insurance due to wildfire risk, and after deadly flooding, Texas plans a new warning system. 

TRANSCRIPT

For the daily yonder and public news service, this is the news from rural America.

Utility debt is a growing crisis affecting rural communities across Kentucky, and they're not alone.

As of late last year, about one in six U.S. households weren't current on those bills.

Aiza Conchola-Benez with Protect Borrowers says those debts, along with student loans and medical bills, are getting especially burdensome.

They've grown significantly across Appalachia and parts of the South.

We know that in Kentucky, for example, energy bills have increased more than 26 percent.

Banez says more than 125,000 Kentucky households owe an average of $550, and black households are three times more likely than white to owe a balance.

Compounding this, Congress has cut funding for heating assistance, and the Trump administration has resumed garnishing the wages of student loan borrowers in default.

These are folks who have fallen so severely behind that they are experiencing or set to experience being subjected to debt collection as a result.

Colorado's ever-increasing wildfire risk is making homeowners insurance difficult to get or exorbitantly expensive.

Alana Newman reports on a new law that aims to help.

The law requires insurance companies to be transparent about how fire danger affects premiums and offers savings options based on homeowners' fire mitigation efforts.

Colorado's insurance commissioner Mike Conway hopes costs will decrease for homeowners.

We can make homeowners insurance more affordable for homeowners.

That's going to bring more insurance companies into the market because they're going to want to compete in that space.

But not everyone agrees.

Carol Walker leads the Rocky Mountain Insurance Information Association.

She says the added confusion and regulation could actually drive companies out of the state.

If you live in a high-risk area, it's not necessarily about reducing your premium.

It's about maintaining insurance.

I'm Ilana Newman.

Texas is implementing a new statewide flood warning system after more than 100 people were killed last summer by the fast rising Guadalupe River.

Texas Tech University has received twenty four million dollars from the state to develop the system.

Lead researcher Brian Hurth says the National Weather Service does have radar across the region, but there are big gaps in the hill country.

We know where those holes are.

We've identified places that we can deploy new radar systems to help fill those gaps.

Hearst says a new system will take atmospheric data and predict what will happen six hours into the future.

He notes it will be similar to one already in place a bit to the west, consisting of 170 weather stations.

As the events are occurring, we'll be measuring them with new weather stations, new rain gauges, new radar systems, but then also we'll be forecasting their occurrence with new weather modeling.

For the Daily Yonder and Public News Service, I'm Roz Brown.

For more rural stories, visit dailyyonder.com.