Four days after deadly floodwaters surged through Texas Hill Country, rescue teams are still combing the banks of the Guadalupe River, holding out hope that some missing victims may still be found alive.
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“This will be a rough week,” Kerrville Mayor Joe Herring Jr. said. “Primary search continues and we remain hopeful. Every foot, every mile, every bend of the river, our work continues.”
While the search continues, a clearer picture has emerged of how the flood turned catastrophic — and how quickly it escalated in the early hours of July 4. The tragic aftermath of the flooding in Texas has also raised questions about warnings, and whether they could have gone out any sooner.
It began with days of warnings. On Wednesday, July 2, the Texas Division of Emergency Management alerted residents to an increased risk of flooding. A day later, officials urged Texans to “stay weather aware.” By Thursday afternoon, the National Weather Service had issued a flood watch for the region.
According to the National Weather Service, the regional office that monitors conditions in Kerr County, TX sent its first flood watch out at 1:18 p.m. on Thursday, roughly 15 hours before the torrential downpours. The flood warning went out at 1:14 a.m. on July 4, providing a three-hour lead time, according to officials, before the catastrophic flood.
“To pinpoint one specific, tiny little area is going to get hit... that is so difficult to do,” said WPTV First Alert meteorologist James Wieland. "That's what the watches are for.”
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In the early hours of July 4, the warnings grew more urgent. At 3:06 a.m., the National Weather Service advised: “Turn Around, Don’t Drown.”
Just after 4 a.m., the agency issued an urgent, all-caps bulletin, calling the looming flood a “PARTICULARLY DANGEROUS SITUATION.”
By then, it was too late. In just two hours, between 4 and 6 a.m., the Guadalupe River rose nearly 30 feet.
“When the warning comes out, it's almost too late, because it means it's happening right now, and you need to take cover immediately,” Wieland said.
The region's geography made the disaster worse. With rolling hills, deep canyons and narrow creeks, there was little room for nearly 20 inches of rainfall in some areas to disperse.
Kerrville City Manager Dalton Rice said the storm’s unpredictability was part of the challenge.
“Everybody, including the NWS, was looking at, where is the rain going to hit?” Rice said. “We know it’s somewhere in here, but with rain ... sometimes you don’t know until it falls."
Wieland recommended turning emergency alerts on in your smartphone settings, in order to get the most urgent information from the NWS as soon as it’s available.
The same landscape that makes Kerr County a picturesque destination for summer camps and holiday cookouts also makes it one of the most dangerous places in Texas, a state that already leads the nation in flash flood fatalities.
