NBC News - As the aftermath of the floods comes into clearer view, questions have emerged about the timing of the weather alerts sent to people in the area. Some Texas officials have blamed the National Weather Service, arguing it didn't do a good enough job of forecasting rainfall and issuing timely flooding alerts.
In Kerr County, a flood watch was issued Thursday afternoon, and an urgent flash flood warning was issued at 1:14 a.m. Friday morning. Downriver in the town of Comfort, a flash flood alert for Kendall County came at 7:24 a.m. Friday — and a wailing siren urging residents to flee provided a last-minute alarm for anyone who hadn't responded to previous warnings.
There were zero fatalities in Comfort, according to Danny Morales, assistant fire chief of the city's volunteer fire department.
It's impossible to know whether a siren system in Kerr County would have saved lives. The systems are meant to alert people who are outdoors, not in bed indoors, as many victims were. And many people in Kendall County were already awake and aware of the dangerous flooding when they were alerted of the threat to their area.
But Tom Moser — a former Kerr County commissioner who began looking into a warning system for his area 10 years ago, after deadly floods in nearby Hays County — believes a system would have been valuable. Records show there were disagreements among officials about the need for a siren system, and the county didn't have the funding it needed.
"I don't know if it could have been 100% preventable," Moser said of the current disaster's death toll. "But it could have been improved."
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