The Texas county where nearly 100 people were killed and more than 160 remain missing had the technology to turn every cellphone in the river valley into a blaring alarm but local officials did not do so before or during the early morning hours of July 4 as river levels rose to record heights, inundating campsites and homes, a Washington Post examination found.
Kerr County officials, who have come under increasing scrutiny for their actions as the Guadalupe River began to flood, eventually sent text-message alerts that morning to residents who had registered to receive them, according to screenshots of the texts.But The Post’s review of emergency notifications that night found that even as a federal meteorologist warned of deteriorating conditions and catastrophic risk, county officials did not activate a more powerful notification tool they had previously used to warn of potential flooding.The National Weather Service sent its own alerts through this system, beginning at 1:14 a.m.on July 4.
That mass notification system, known as the Integrated Public Alert & Warning System, or IPAWS, is used by National Weather Service meteorologists to warn of imminent threats.Warnings of life-threatening weather events sent on that system — similar to Amber Alerts — force phones to vibrate and emit a unique, jarring tone as long as they’re on and have a signal.They also allow qualified local officials to send tailored messages to targeted areas.
The lack of alerts sent through IPAWS from Kerr County officials as the Guadalupe River flooded was a critical misstep in their response, said Abdul-Akeem Sadiq, a professor at the University of Central Florida who researches emergency management.Residents are more likely to trust — and listen to — their local government officials, he said, and the alert could have made a difference for some people despite the spotty cellphone service along the river and the fact that many people were likely asleep as floodwaters surged.
“If the alert had gone out, there might be one or two people who might have still been able to receive that message, who, now, through word of mouth, alert people around them,” Sadiq said.
IPAWS is just one part of a successful emergency response, experts say.Ideally, officials would warn of impending weather events before they escalate — and on July 4, the flooding surged faster and higher than forecasters predicted.
Kerr County officials have for years talked about the need for a more robust flash-flood warning system, including sirens that would reach people in places with no cell service.
But in the absence of that expensive infrastructure, they adopted IPAWS — which cost them nothing — as a way to alert more people by phone.
Kerr County officials have activated IPAWS twice before, most recently in 2024 amid concern about possible flash floods, according to a database of alerts sent through IPAWS archived by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Last summer, on the evening of July 23, records show, an alert sent through IPAWS was issued from an email address used by William B.“Dub” Thomas, Kerr County’s emergency management coordinator.In that instance, the alert warned that the Guadalupe River could rise four feet and that people should avoid low-level river crossings and move their belongings away from the water.The flash flood passed with no major injuries.
On Friday, the river rose at least 30 feet in Hunt, Texas, close to Camp Mystic, where more than two dozen campers would be killed in the flood.
Two days after the deadly July 4 storm, amid thunderstorms and more heavy rain, Kerr County officials used IPAWS to warn there could be another round of river flooding, the database shows.
Thomas, Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha and other county officials did not respond to emails, texts and other requests from The Post for comment.A communications team representing state and local officials said in a statement that county leaders have been focused on rescue and reunification and they are “committed to a transparent and full review of processes and protocols.”
Asked Tuesday during a news conference if anyone in the county’s emergency management division had been awake to push the button to send an emergency alert, Leitha, the sheriff, shot back that it wasn’t that easy.“There’s a lot more to that,” Leitha said.A reporter asked again, had any alert been sent? “I can’t tell you at this time,” Leitha said.
Faced with similar questions at a news conference a day later, Leitha said he was not running from responsibility.
“Those questions need to be answered to the families of missed love ones, to the public, to the people who put me in this office,” he said, promising a full after-action review.
The National Weather Service issued 22 alerts through IPAWS on July 4, sending increasingly dire warnings to swaths of Kerr County.
National Weather Service’s typical notifications use wording such as “turn around, don’t drown” and “move to higher ground now” to warn of general risks to broad geographical areas.They come so frequently in an area of the country known as “Flash Flood Alley” that they are often ignored, residents say.
Experts say that county officials, by contrast, could have issued evacuation orders, described risks to specific neighborhoods or provided other, more location-specific guidance to stay safe.
Such targeted information, especially from a known and trusted source, can help persuade people to take action, experts say.
When the county did issue cellphone alerts that morning, it used a warning system with more limited reach, called CodeRED, that can be used to send voice messages to landlines listed in the White Pages as well as text messages to the cellphones of people who have signed up.
CodeRED can target messages to specific locations in the county, and The Post could not obtain a comprehensive list of all CodeRED messages sent on July 4 to determine when the earliest was sent.But screenshots of text messages show some local residents did not receive one until 10:55 a.m., more than five hours after the river reached its highest recorded water level.Earlier in the morning, the CodeRED system had automatically rebroadcast versions of National Weather Service warnings, the screenshots show.
Days before the holiday, weather forecasters could see the potential for slow-moving storms across south Central Texas.On the afternoon of July 3, the National Weather Service issued a flood watch across Central Texas, warning of a few inches of rain — 5 to 7 inches at the most — through early Friday.
As July 3 progressed, some weather models predicted the possibility of 10 inches of rain — and even as much as 20 inches.
Meanwhile, camps along the Guadalupe were bustling with hundreds of children from across the country and RV parks and motels were filling up across Kerr County for a patriotic Fourth of July concert that was expected to draw thousands of visitors.
It was the kind of recipe for trouble that Thomas and others in Kerr County had been warning of for nearly a decade, according to minutes from county commissioner meetings.
Thomas, a 25-year veteran of the Texas Highway Patrol who had weathered hurricanes, fires and even a space shuttle disaster, began working as Kerr County’s emergency manager in 2015.
The following year, at a county commissioners’ meeting in March 2016, he said that he considered Kerr’s opt-in CodeRED warning system to be inadequate.
Thomas said he was concerned that the county’s many visitors, including those attending camps along the river, wouldn’t receive alerts in case of disaster, minutes show.
At the same meeting, Thomas pushed for a comprehensive flood monitoring and warning system.He suggested Kerr could adopt a system like that used by a neighboring county, with solar-power backups and 13-decibel sirens that could be heard from three miles away.
Some commissioners balked at paying for the system outright and the Federal Emergency Management Agency rejected the county’s application for a grant to help defray the cost, The Post previously reported.
In November 2020, Thomas briefed commission members on a new plan: Kerr County could piggyback on the federal IPAWS for free “to notify folks when they’re here in Kerr County about a flood, fire, whatever.”
Thomas told commissioners he would be the one to train on and activate the county’s alerts through IPAWS, meeting minutes show.His email address is listed as having been used to send the county’s first IPAWS message, a shelter-in-place alert sent on an icy day in February 2022, according to archived alerts available online.The message told people not to travel unless they were having an emergency, and advised that anyone who lost power could warm up in the gym at the back of a local Methodist church or at any volunteer fire department.
Neither he nor any other Kerr County official sent another emergency weather alert through IPAWS until the flash flood warning for the Guadalupe River in July 2024, the archives show.
That was the last time they used the system before the July 4 flood.
In the wee hours of the July 4, a National Weather Service meteorologist named Jason Runyen was on duty for the Austin/San Antonio region, according to the updates he posted in a channel on Slack, a messaging system the Weather Service uses to keep local officials and reporters informed about changing conditions.Runyen could not be reached for comment.
Thomas is a member of that channel, records show, and had last posted a message on May 8 about thunderstorms.It’s not clear whether he or any other official from Kerr County were monitoring the channel that night, CNN first reported.
The contents of Runyen’s messages as the flooding unfolded have not been previously reported.
In a statement, Weather Service spokeswoman Erica Grow Cei said there “were multiple communications involving” local emergency management and the agency’s Austin/San Antonio office on the morning of July 4, including by email, Slack and phone call.She did not specify which officials were involved, or if any were with Kerr County.
Shortly before 1 a.m., Runyen wrote that some “cell mergers” were about to take place over central Kerr County and to be on the lookout for flash flooding there and in adjacent Bandera County.An emergency manager from another nearby county reacted immediately with a thumbs up emoji.
At 1:14 a.m., the Weather Service used IPAWS to send a flash-flood warning to all phones in parts of Kerr and Bandera.Radar “indicated thunderstorms across the warned area,” it said, advising recipients to “turn around, don’t drown.”
In Kerrville, the alert buzzed on Joe Marino’s phone like so many had before.
Marino was still awake prepping food for the expected holiday rush at his restaurant, Bill’s BBQ, and didn’t pay much attention.He mostly ignored Weather Service alerts, especially when they sound at night, he said.“No one is paying much mind at 2, 3, 4 o’clock in the morning,” he said.
Conditions worsened over the next hour.Runyen posted on Slack that radar showed downpours dropping 2 to 4 inches an hour.
A local NBC News staffer monitoring the channel asked how far the flash flood warnings might expand.
Runyen was focused on Kerr.
At 2:28 a.m., Runyen wrote that Kerr had received 200 percent of the rainfall needed to trigger flash flooding and that flooding had “likely begun.” An emergency manager from nearby Hays County and one from Missouri reacted with emojis.
There was no reply or acknowledgment from any Kerr County officials, according to archived Slack messages reviewed by The Post.
By that time, the Guadalupe River was already rising.In the hour between 1:25 a.m.and 2:25 a.m., the water level rose a foot above normal to 8.7 feet, according to records from a river gauge directly east of Hunt.
It was just the beginning.Over the next hour, the river rose more than six feet, gauge data show.
By 3 a.m., Runyen was zeroing in on Hunt.
“A very dangerous flash flood event is unfolding across south-central Kerr County,” he wrote on Slack at two minutes after the hour, and Hunt was near the “bullseye.” Worse, the rain was showing no sign of letting up, he noted.
Runyen wrote that Hunt was in a minor flood stage, and might reach moderate “later this morning,” he wrote 20 minutes later.
At 3:56 a.m., flooding at Hunt had moved beyond moderate and into a major flood stage, Runyen wrote.He added that the Weather Service was about to issue another alert through IPAWS to residents’ phones in Kerr and Bandera counties, this one a “Flash Flood Emergency” categorized as “catastrophic.”
Several lines into the text message, the warning was urgent: “Move to higher ground now! This is an extremely dangerous and life-threatening situation,” it read.“It is important to know where you are relative to streams, rivers, or creeks which can become killers in heavy rains.Campers and hikers should avoid streams or creeks.”
Runyen’s messages on Slack, the public Weather Service alerts and the surging river gauges weren’t the only signs that the situation in Kerr County was becoming life-threatening around that time.
John Trolinger, a former Kerr County information technology official, said he was listening with increasing despair to radio communications from firefighters and first responders, who described the disaster as it unfolded.Trolinger recorded many of the transmissions and provided copies to The Post.
At 3:27 a.m., volunteer firefighters radioed dispatchers and reported that the Guadalupe River was starting to “come up,” and that Schumacher’s Crossing, a beloved swimming hole between Ingram and Hunt, was no longer passable, according to a recording of the radio call.
Shortly after, first responders rescued someone out of the water.Dispatchers began fielding calls from flooded houses.
Over the next two hours there were at least 17 different radio transmissions referring to rescues, according to a Post review of Trolinger’s recordings.
At 4:22 a.m., a local firefighter told dispatchers they should send a CodeRED alert to tell residents in Hunt to “find higher ground.”
A minute later the dispatcher’s voice crackled back: “Stand by we need to get that — get that approved by our supervisor.” Texas Public Radio first reported the exchange.
Call after call, the radio transmissions among emergency personnel captured the growing disaster.First responders described children trapped on roofs, an RV full of people floating down the river, frantic attempts to evacuate a campground, and a child and adult screaming for help.
At 5:10 a.m., the river level hit 37.52 feet near Hunt, surpassing the river’s previous record level set in July 1932.The gauge then stopped recording data.
Kerr County officials made their first public comment at 5:31 a.m.
Someone posted on the Kerr County Facebook page that the river gauge had “gone offline” and that flooding was “happening now.”
A minute later, at 5:32 a.m., the Kerr County Sheriff’s Office urged on its Facebook page that people near the river should “move to higher ground immediately.”
Two and a half days after the flooding, as rains continued, Kerr County officials sent the first evacuation order through IPAWS.
“High confidence of river flooding,” began the message sent from Thomas’s email address at 2:58 p.m.on July 6.
“Evacuate the Guadalupe River and low lying areas.Move to higher ground.”
Samuel Oakford and Aaron Schaffer contributed..
