What the Harris County nursing home generator requirement covers
The Harris County nursing home generator requirement forces every nursing home and assisted living facility in unincorporated Harris County, the part of the county that has no city government, to install backup power that starts within 3 hours after an outage begins. The rule is an amendment to the county fire code, the local safety standard facilities must pass to keep an operating license. It took effect January 1, 2025, and gave facilities until January 1, 2026, a full 12 months, to comply. The backup power has to keep heating and cooling running, along with emergency communication systems, medical equipment essential to life support, and the powered doors and elevators facilities use to evacuate residents.
Power isn't just a convenience, it's survival.
Lesley Briones, Harris County Commissioner, Precinct 4. Source 1.
The rule exists because Harris County facilities have already failed without it. During Hurricane Beryl, 14 nursing homes and 30 assisted living facilities in Harris County lost power for several days, and at least 1 assisted living resident death is linked to the loss of power and the heat that followed.
Both figures are from source 1, Harris County facility counts during Hurricane Beryl.
Show the numbers
| Nursing, homes | 14 |
| Assisted, living | 30 |
During Winter Storm Uri, 10% of Texas nursing homes and nearly 33% of Texas assisted living facilities lost power, and over 100 senior deaths statewide are blamed on hypothermia. Federal law already requires nursing homes to have a generator, but county officials say most of those generators do not keep medical equipment or climate control running, the gap the new fire code closes. Compliance with the rule will now be checked during the annual state inspection every facility must pass to renew a license.
Source 1 states nearly 33% for assisted living facilities. Both figures describe Texas statewide during Winter Storm Uri, not Harris County alone.
Show the numbers
| Nursing homes | 10 |
| Assisted living facilities | 33 |
How a new Texas law limits the Harris County nursing home generator requirement
Eight months later, the Texas legislature passed a separate law covering some of the same ground, House Bill 3595, effective September 1, 2025. The law creates Health and Safety Code section 247.073, which requires every assisted living facility in Texas, not just Harris County, to adopt an emergency preparedness plan by January 1, 2026, the same date the county compliance deadline lands. The plan must include a climate controlled refuge area that holds a temperature between 68 and 82 degrees Fahrenheit, with at least 15 square feet of space for every resident who is not bedfast, and a separate climate controlled room for residents who are. The state law does not require a generator or any specific power source, only that temperature and space outcome.
Advocates worry that this is already an industry that has shown it's wary to installing backup power.
Claire Hao, Houston Chronicle energy and power grid reporter. Source 5.
Reading the enrolled bill text directly against the county fire code amendment shows the state law reaches less than the whole county mandate. Subsection j of House Bill 3595 preempts only rules covering assisted living facility residents, the exact term the bill defines earlier in the bill own text, and Texas regulates nursing homes under a separate part of the Health and Safety Code, chapter 242, not chapter 247, the chapter this bill amends. The Harris County fire code covers both nursing homes and assisted living facilities in the same amendment, so the state law can only reach the assisted living half of that mandate, not the nursing home half.
Whether Harris County will change or defend the nursing home half of the mandate against the new state law is not yet settled. No source found for this article states how many of the 120 facilities required to comply had met the January 1, 2026 deadline by the time it arrived, or whether the county has revised the rule since House Bill 3595 took effect.