HUNT, Texas — Four days after the devastating flash floods in Texas Hill Country, local officials and law enforcement in Kerr County couldn’t provide basic details of the emergency response — including whether the emergency management coordinator, who decided to order evacuations, was awake when the waters started rising.
“We’re in the process of trying to put a timeline — that’s going to take a little bit of time,” Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha said at a news conference Tuesday, stressing that his priorities were finding missing people, identifying them and notifying their next of kin.
On “Here’s the Scoop,” podcast co-host Morgan Chesky takes listeners on the ground to hear from survivors of Texas’ catastrophic flooding.
Pressed about the critical window after the National Weather Service issued its first flash flood warning for the area at 1:14 a.m. on the Fourth of July, Leitha offered little clarity. He was unable to describe the role emergency management officials played in those moments, including who was communicating with the weather service or monitoring for critical notifications.
The severity and speed of the disaster that has killed more than 100 people caught this swath of land — known as flash flood alley — by surprise, even as such extreme weather events are becoming increasingly common. This is raising questions about whether local officials were prepared and whether proper planning is in place to avoid a similar disaster in the future.
Many were still in their beds when the floodwaters rose. The majority of those killed were in Kerr County — 57 adults and 30 children, mostly from a summer camp on the banks of the Guadalupe River. Another 161 in the county were still missing, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said. Among the unanswered questions: What actions were taken to notify residents? Were emergency alerts adequate and who issued them?
It was also unclear whether emergency alerts were received on all phones; girls at the summer camp weren’t allowed to have them, and service can be spotty. A neighboring town had an outdoor warning siren, but Kerr County doesn’t.
Leitha, appearing with Kerrville’s mayor and law enforcement officials, said he was notified about the events between 4 a.m. and 5 a.m. — hours after the flash flood warnings issued by the weather service were pinging to cellphones, although not all residents said they were received. By daybreak, the Guadalupe River rose 26 feet in 45 minutes, burying its flood gauge.
Officials and police in Kerr County began to post on Facebook about “life threatening” flooding after 5 a.m., when the river had already surpassed a record level of over 36 feet. It’s unclear whether officials were communicating with residents in other ways before then.
Leitha couldn’t say whether the county’s emergency coordinator, W.B. “Dub” Thomas, was out of bed earlier and involved in warning residents. Lt. Col. Ben Baker of the Texas Game Wardens declined to comment on emergency operations and who was in charge.
Thomas, the emergency management coordinator since 2015, didn’t respond to requests for comment Tuesday.
