In deadly Texas floods, one town had what some didn’t: A wailing warning siren

While the heavy rains triggered warnings of the flash floods along the Guadalupe river in Texas Hill Country on Friday, the small town of Comfort in society had something that its neighbors in the county of Kerr did not do it: sirens by lamage exhorting the residents to flee before the water could swallow them.

The comfort had recently updated its alert system in the event of a disaster, installing a new mermaid in the headquarters of the voluntary fire service and moving the old in an area of ​​the lower city along Cypress Creek, an tributary of the Guadalupe which is subject to floods. Friday, it was the first time that the new Siren system was used outside the tests, providing a last -minute alarm to anyone who had not responded to previous warnings on their mobile phones or firefighters’ evacuation announcements leading to the city.

“People knew that if they heard the mermaid, they must go out,” said Danny Morales, deputy head of the voluntary comfort fire service.

Morales said no one died in comfort, a city of around 2,300 people in Kendall County. But in the county of Kerr, about 20 miles away, dozens of people, including young girls staying at the Mystic camp, a Christian summer camp in Riverside, were swept when the Guadalupe overcome its banks and overwhelmed the surrounding campaign. Monday evening, said that 104 people were confirmed dead, including 84 in Kerr County, including dozens of children. Kerr County does not have a mermaid system despite years of debate, in part because some local officials thought it was too expensive to install.

The part of Texas Hill Country known as “South Flood Alley” has seen rising waters several times Before, but the rapid and punishing destruction of July 4 has focused attention to the fact that local officials make it enough to protect their residents because climate change causes more frequent and severe weather disasters and that the federal government reduces expenditure for emergency preparation.

The swollen river fell back, leaving behind the heartbreaking signs of devastation: the suitcases and clothes of the little girls scattered along the shipwrecked cabinet and soft toys sewn with trash, twisted metal and knotty vehicles. Three days after the floods, the researchers still obtained through slaughtered trees and hunted in a thick black mud for those who still lacked. Parents’ hopes have decreased when the days were hanging out without any sign of life.

It is impossible to know if a mermaid system in Kerr’s county would have saved lives; They are intended to alert people outside, not in bed inside, like many victims of the County of Kerr were when the river increased during the night – at a given moment 26 feet in just 45 minutes.

The meteorological service issued flooding for the region Thursday afternoon and an urgent flash flood warning for Kerr County at 1:14 on Friday, a decision that triggers wireless emergency alerts on mobile phones.

As the flood flooded low parts of Kendall County, where the comfort is, it was later Friday morning. The First Weather Service alert for Kendall arrived at 7:24 am when the sirens came out, many residents were already awake and aware of the dangerous floods. A Facebook video recorded by Jeff Flinn, the editor -in -chief of the Boerne star, shows the emergency sirens in comfort at 10:52 am; He said the alert lasted about 30 seconds.

Kerr County counted on emergency alerts that remain on mobile phones. These alerts may not pass, especially in rural areas with poor service or in the night when phones are off or when there are no phones; The girls of the summer camp were not allowed to bring them. And some may choose to ignore them because they are bombed by telephone alerts.

Some Texas officials blamed the National Weather Service, arguing that he had not done a job good enough in anticipation of precipitation and by issuing a timely warnings. But some independent meteorologists and a former head of meteorological services told NBC News that the agency had performed as it could give the unpredictability of the rain and sudden floods and the moment of the disaster.

Tom Moser, a former County Commissioner of Kerr, said that he had started studying a warning system for his region after flooding in the county of Hays, which was overwhelmed by the Blanco River, killed 13 people on Memorial Day weekend in 2015.

Kerr County officials debated various options, including one for an alert system that included sensors and sirens, and the cost was about $ 1 million, Moser said.

“There were a number of people who did not like the sirens to be triggered because they accidentally leave,” said Moser. “They did not want this disturbance in the country of the hills.”

During a meeting of commissioners of March 2016, Rusty Hierholzer, then the sheriff of the county of Kerr, was categorical about the fact that the deadly floods in the community of the county of Hays de Wimberley were a warning for the need to install sirens in addition to a notification system of telephone application known as the code Red already used.

In Wimberley, some people have not obtained alerts on their phones, “so yes, you need the two,” said Hierholzer, according to a transcription from the meeting. “You need sirens, and you need red code to try to make sure that we will inform everyone as we can when it happens.”

During a follow -up discussion on the August proposal, the press release of the time, Ha “Buster” Baldwin, questioned the flood alert system they were considering, saying: “I think that all this is a bit extravagant for the county of Kerr, with Sirens and others”, according to a transcription.

They estimated that the system would cost $ 1 million and they did not have the money to add it to the budget.

Moser said they had not obtained a disaster funding in the event of a disaster that they had asked the Federal Emergency Management Agency. “In fact, there were no subsidies available, we thought we could get in a timely time,” said Moser.