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The owners of multiple small businesses in Killeen are speaking out against an ordinance charging them fees for placing flags to advertise their locations.

KILLEEN, Texas — Small business owners across Killeen are reeling after city officials began strictly enforcing a long-dormant ordinance on flags and banners. The regulation, which has been on the books for over 15 years but was rarely enforced, requires businesses to pay $85 per week for each promotional flag or banner displayed.

For Brandon Harlee, owner of the Texas Crab House food truck, the enforcement came without any warning. He said the effects were immediate.

"So when we experimented this week, we took the flags down and our sales almost went to zero, and by the end of the week I had had enough and I put them up on Friday and our sales went back to normal," said Harlee.

With two promotional flags, Harlee now faces a staggering $9,000 in annual fees to maintain the visibility his small seafood business depends on.

Texas Crab House isn't alone. Rock and Roll Ice Cream Parlor has also reported declining sales since complying with the enforcement. The financial strain extends beyond the business owners themselves. As small businesses struggle with reduced visibility and declining sales, staff members face an uncertain future.

Avon Watson expressed similar concerns about his ability to support his employees under the new financial burden.

"It has slowed up," said Watson. "And as a result, I think, not before long, the people that we currently hire, which is young people, teenagers, college students and high school students, you may have to cut back hours or let them go altogether."

In response to the enforcement, local small business owners have organized a political action group. They plan to meet every Friday night to develop strategies to push for change. The group hopes to convince city officials to waive or significantly reduce the fees, particularly for small businesses and food trucks that rely heavily on flags and banners for visibility.

As these small businesses navigate this challenging situation, they emphasize that community support is more important than ever. Customers are encouraged to continue supporting these establishments and to consider speaking out at upcoming city council meetings about the impact the ordinance is having on beloved local businesses.

BURKBURNETT, Texas — A family of strong tornadoes tore through areas south of Killeen, Texas, on Thursday, leading to swaths of destruction — all as no tornadoes were officially predicted to occur.

At least three tornadoes, probably all possessing winds greater than 120 mph, touched down near Briggs, a town in eastern Burnet County south of Killeen. Five homes were damaged along County Road 223, and one driver was reported injured. The National Weather Service in the Austin-San Antonio area planned to survey the damage Friday.

Copperas Cove, on the extreme west side of Killeen, reported hail up to 4.5 inches in diameter — roughly the size of a grapefruit. Had the storm been shifted just five miles east-northeast, the damage could have been much more significant. Hail is by far the most expensive thunderstorm hazard in Texas and causes orders of magnitude more financial loss than tornadoes annually.

Storm system moving east

The same parent storm system that drove these tornadoes is shifting east Friday, with an enhanced (Level 3 out of 5) risk of severe weather from Texas to central Kentucky. It includes Houston; Austin; San Antonio; Jackson, Mississippi; Birmingham, Alabama; and Lexington, Kentucky.

The main concern will be damaging straight-line winds, though large hail could be a problem, especially in Texas.

The storms are forming along a slow-moving cold front being dragged southeast by low pressure over the Great Lakes. The front is impinging on warm, humid air and kicking up that moisture to form storms. With jet stream winds blowing overhead, it’s possible a few storms will contain damaging gusts.

The Thursday tornadoes

The first tornado touched down about 4:28 p.m. near Kempner on the west side of Killeen. While the parent storm was slowly drifting east, the tornado meandered south-southeast. It reached its widest — perhaps close to a quarter-mile in diameter — about 4:42 p.m., then exhibited a dramatic and spectacular rope-out between 4:45 and 4:54 p.m.

The rope-out phases lasted an unusually long time, but that’s expected in environments such as Thursday’s. Ordinarily, the bulk of the spin is due to changing winds at the mid-levels of the atmosphere, but Thursday’s setup was a bit atypical — it was a result of robust overturning, or horizontal spin, close to the ground. Storms ingested that spin and tilted it vertically. But that meant any tornadic circulations could linger near the ground for an extended period by feeding off that spin — even after the parent storm’s rotation reshuffled or weakened.

A second tornado touched down about 5:09 p.m. and lasted until about 5:23 p.m. while passing precariously close to Briggs. It appears to have slipped just east of Route 183. We watched as the tornado closed up and roped out. In photos, one can see a prominent slice of cool, dry air wrap around the circulation from the west, carve out a clearing, tighten the spin and eventually strangle it. Then the tornado disappeared.

Moments later, a new tornado formed — and lasted several minutes before dissipating.

Did forecasters see it coming?

Until late Thursday afternoon, the National Weather Service was forecasting an approximately zero percent risk of tornadoes. Storm chasers and meteorologists alike were concerned by sunrise that one or two lone, discrete rotating supercells would form near Killeen and pose a hail, wind and tornado threat. High-resolution computer models were consistent in depicting a rotating thunderstorm forming about 3 p.m., and machine learning models placed a bull’s eye around Killeen.

But the National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center hadn’t issued any risk category. Eventually, the service added a slight (Level 2 out of 5) risk of large, damaging hail but never predicted tornadoes.

Even the local National Weather Service office for Austin-San Antonio seemingly missed the tornado threat. Its midafternoon forecast discussion from Thursday at 3:04 p.m. did not include the word “tornado.”

In a statement on Friday, NOAA spokesperson Erica Cei noted that the Weather Service forecast on Thursday “highlighted the potential for severe thunderstorms across central Texas” and included areas under a severe thunderstorm watch.

“These watches note that severe thunderstorms can, and occasionally do, produce tornadoes,” Cei added. “When this low but present tornado potential was realized, the local NWS office appropriately issued a Tornado Warning.”

Were the ingredients there?

From a meteorological standpoint, the tornado event was about as classic as it gets in Texas. While there wasn’t much large-scale turning of the winds with height — which would promote rotating thunderstorms — there were other key features that should have been alarming.

For starters, there was a leftover outflow boundary. That marked the leading edge of the cool air exhaust from Wednesday’s storms. That boundary was the source of low-level spin. And if a storm could anchor to and gobble up that spin, it could stretch it into tornadoes.

Ahead of the storms, some meteorologists were discussing similar past events, like what happened in Jarrell, Texas, on May 27, 1997, or north of Abilene on May 2, 2024.

Just two weeks ago, another boundary-induced tornado happened near Sterling City, Texas; the Weather Service didn’t issue a warning until after touchdown.

With a pseudo-dryline bulge, easterly surface winds (bolstering low-level spin) and some extra twist along a stalled moisture boundary/convergence band, I expect a #tornado threat with the supercells exploding near Temple/Killeen. @MyRadarWX pic.twitter.com/IuR2a8Wrev

— Matthew Cappucci (@MatthewCappucci) May 1, 2025

Even more of a red flag was an extreme amount of instability, or thunderstorm fuel. A juiced-up atmosphere allowed thunderstorms to explode about 3 p.m., with clouds blossoming from nothing to nearly 60,000 feet tall in 45 minutes.

There was also an obvious dry-line bulge, or a bulge of dry air nudging its way into a moist air mass over Killeen. That bulge helped enhance low-level spin by pulling surface winds more out of the east.

Added together, it was a classic environment for producing strong tornadoes — and that’s exactly what happened.

KILLEEN, Texas (KWTX) — The City of Killeen announced it has placed a moratorium on the enforcement of a new banner sign ordinance mandating business owners take down roadside flags meant to attract customers.

City council plans to discuss the ordinance at two future Council meetings, beginning April 15.

The regulation is outlined in the City’s Code of Ordinances under Signs and Outdoor Displays in section 31-502.

It states, “a banner sign shall mean any non-permanent sign usually made from cloth, vinyl or similar material denoting a business related advertisement, name, message, design, emblem, symbol or color that is suspended or displayed for advertisement or to attract attention.”

According to the City, the ordinance has been in place for nearly 15 years and has not changed, although municipal staff recently reassessed implementation and began enforcing the ordinance properly as written.

“City staff previously interpreted the ordinance in a manner that treated these types of signs as flags, rather than banner signs, although ‘banner signs’ is the original intent of the ordinance,” City Council announced.

“We do, indeed, acknowledge the confusion that the reimplementation may have brought,” Wallis Meshier, Executive Director of Development Services said.

“We have worked with Code Enforcement staffing to ensure proper understanding of the requirements of the ordinance, so it can be properly explained.”

Enforcement will discontinue until the matter is discussed at the April 15 Council meeting, and a decision is not expected to happen sooner than May 6.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE: ‘They can come and take them’: Killeen, Texas business owners frustrated by city’s new flag ordinance enforcement

Small business owners in Killeen are expressing frustration after the city ordered them to take down roadside flags they’ve relied on to attract customers.

Local businesses are facing a new setback as the key advertising opportunity is taken off the table.

“It’s one less means of advertising that’s no longer at the disposal of not just my business, but all the other businesses that use this form of advertising,” said Avon Watson, a board member of Rock and Roll Ice Cream Parlor.

The flags, commonly posted near food trucks and other businesses, have been a staple for many, but now they face tough decisions: pay for a costly permit or remove the flags entirely.

The city’s enforcement of an old ordinance, which has been in place since 2010, has caught business owners by surprise.

While the ordinance itself isn’t new, the way the city is interpreting and enforcing it has recently changed.

Under this interpretation, flags are now classified as “temporary banners,” which require businesses to obtain a permit and pay fees.

Brandon Harlee, owner of the Texas Krab House food truck in Killeen, said his business could be severely impacted by the new enforcement.

Harlee, who operates three food trucks across Texas, says his Killeen location has thrived due in large part to the flags posted near the street corner.

“Every customer that comes up to our truck, I ask them how they heard about us. And half of my business tells me, ‘We were just driving by and we saw the flags,‘” Harlee said.

However, after receiving a call from a city code inspector, Harlee was told he needed a permit for the flags he’s had up since October of last year.

He questions why the city is suddenly enforcing the rule now.

“If we’ve been able to operate all this time without these permits and fees, why start enforcing it now?” Harlee asked.

Killeen’s Code Enforcement Director, Jerry Millard, said the city is simply returning to the original intent of the 2010 ordinance, which was meant to reduce the number of signs along undeveloped roadways.

Millard explained that previous staff had misclassified these flags as regular flags rather than banners, and now the city is correcting that.

“The overabundance of signage acts to clutter a property and the beautification of the city in general,” Millard said. “The intent was always to classify them as temporary banners.”

Under the new interpretation, Harlee faces an $85 fee every five days for a permit to keep his flags up, potentially totaling around $2,000 annually.

Harlee said this added expense could devastate his business.

“If we’re forced to take down the flags, ultimately it will be the demise of my business here,” Harlee said.

Millard encouraged small business owners to consider other forms of advertising, suggesting they evaluate their signage and advertising budgets.

“I would encourage them to look at the signage they have and utilize other means or venues for the advertising of their business,” Millard said.

But Harlee, determined to keep his flags up, has no intention of paying the permit fees.

“As far as I’m concerned, the flags will stay, and they can just come and take them,” he said.

Harlee remains hopeful he can continue drawing customers and serving the food he loves.

“I’m just trying to do a hard, honest day’s work,” he said.

In response to the growing concerns from business owners, Killeen City Council Member Jessica Gonzalez has requested a discussion on potentially revising the ordinance.

The council will vote on the issue during the next meeting in April.

Copyright 2025 KWTX. All rights reserved.

A possible tornado touched down in Killeen, Bell County, Texas. Videos on social media show the storms moving through the area.

Edited by:

Photo : iStock

A possible tornado touched down in Killeen, Bell County, Texas. Videos on social media show the storms moving through the area.

Weather sirens were heard in Killeen after a tornado was seen south of Kempner, moving toward Burnet County.

This is a developing story.

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