This part of Texas Hill Country is known for flash floods. Why were so many people caught off guard when the river turned violent?

The first weather emergency alert sent by the National Weather Service with urgent language instructing people to "seek higher ground now" was sent at 4:03 a.m. local time.

The alert, a Blue Alert issued by the FBI, named Benjamin Song, 32, as the suspect wanted in the July 4 shooting of a police officer at the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarad

Officials in Kerr County, where the majority of the deaths from the July 4 flash floods occurred, have yet to detail what actions they took in the early hours of the disaster.

Weather warnings predicted devastation from both the Texas floods and Hurricane Helene. But in both disasters, people were left in harm’s way.

A small Texas town that recorded no deaths in last weekend’s flood disaster had recently upgraded its emergency alert system — the kind of setup state, county and federal officials

A 2024 RAND report found Texas cellphone users opted out of wireless emergency alerts at the highest rate. Nearly 30% of Texans chose to turn off at least one kind of wireless alert, a choice researchers partly attributed to exhaustion from the large number of statewide alerts.

Flooding is the deadliest natural disaster facing Oklahomans, a threat far greater than tornadoes. In the United States, flooding kills an average of 103 people a year. Tornadoes, however, caused 48 deaths on average during the same period, according to the National Weather Service.

Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha was unable to answer direct questions about who was in charge and whether they were asleep early Friday morning when the Guadalupe River burst its banks.

Shock has turned into grief across Texas where at least 120 people have died from flash floods and more were missing as the search for victims moved methodically along endless miles of rivers and rubble Thursday.