A Climate Plan in Texas Focuses on Minorities. Not Everyone Likes It.

After Democrats took control of the commission, they eventually decided to rank projects based in part on the “social vulnerability” of the communities they protected — an index created by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that reflects what share of residents are minorities, can’t speak English, lack a job, are older, live in mobile homes, don’t have cars or face other challenges.

The goal, according to Ms. Hidalgo, was to reflect how hard it would be for a neighborhood to recover from the next disaster, and prioritize flood-control projects in those areas — what she described as a more comprehensive version of the worst-first approach. “That means elevating some of the communities that had gone overlooked,” she said.

The commission passed that new approach along party lines, which in Harris County also means racial lines. The three Democrats who voted in favor are African-American or Hispanic, while the two Republicans who voted against it are white.

Jack Cagle, one of the Republican commissioners who voted against the measure, praised the county’s flood-control department for working quickly on all the bond-funded projects over the past year, blunting the effect of the new prioritization. But he said his voters feel misled, after supporting a bond that they thought would focus on physical risk.

“If you voted on a premise of worst first, and now you’re being told, look, go to the end of the line, you could be unworthy — you’re going to get some pushback from that,” Mr. Cagle said.

Twenty-five miles north of Pleasantville, in the wealthy neighborhood of Kingwood at the edge of Lake Houston, Beth Guide’s house flooded last year. When the county said it would prioritize flood-control projects based in part on social vulnerability, she objected. The only criterion, she said, should be who faces the greatest flood risk.