07/10/2025

A Decade of Missed Opportunities

Texas couldn’t find $1 million for flood warning system near camps

Over the last 10 years, an array of Texas state and local agencies missed opportunities to fund a flood warning system intended to avert a disaster like the one that killed dozens of young campers and scores of others in Kerr County on the Fourth of July.

The agencies repeatedly failed to secure roughly $1 million for a project to better protect the county’s 50,000 residents and thousands of youth campers and tourists who spend time along the Guadalupe River in an area known as “flash-flood alley.” The plan, which would have installed flood monitoring equipment near Camp Mystic, cost about as much as the county spends on courthouse security every two years, or 1.5 percent of its annual budget.

Meanwhile, other communities had moved ahead with sirens and warning systems of their own. In nearby Comfort, a long, flat-three minute warning sound signifying flood danger helped evacuate the town of 2,000 people as practiced.

Please select this link to read the complete article from The Associated Press.