Rescue efforts began Friday, but FEMA did not deploy its network of Urban Search and Rescue teams until Monday.

Kerr County officials say they are still focused mainly on the search for survivors with hundreds still missing and weren't yet examining how the emergency response unfolded.

A "Basic Plan" for emergency response for three Texas counties labeled flash flooding as having a "major" impact on public safety, according to a page on a city website.

More than 100 people are dead and 150 known to be missing in Texas Wednesday from flooding but questions remain about how the effects of the deadly disaster could have been mitigated.

A week after catastrophic floods in Central Texas, key questions remain unanswered about how state and local officials prepared for and responded to the disaster.

A Kerrville-area river authority executed a contract for a flood warning system that would have been used to help with emergency response, local officials said.

Even before dozens died in flood waters on July 4, Texas ranked first in the U.S. in number of deaths due to natural disasters.

Kerr County’s emergency manager would have been the one to guide a flash flooding procedure and evacuation plan – ideally established ahead of time – that’s designed to maximize lives saved.

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.

"FEMA has been really headed by some very good people,” Trump said during a roundtable with local officials, suggesting his administration turned the agency around after sharply criticizing the Biden administration-led FEMA response to flooding in North Carolina in late 2024.