Plans to develop a flood monitoring system in the Texas county hit hardest by deadly floods were scheduled to begin only a few weeks later.

In the last nine years, federal funding for a system has been denied to the county as it contends with a tax base hostile to government overspending.

KERRVILLE, Texas (AP) — Over the last decade, an array of Texas state and local agencies missed opportunities to fund a flood warning system intended to avert a disaster like the one that killed dozens of young campers and scores of others in Kerr County on the Fourth of July.

Rain rushing to the Guadalupe took it from a depth of less than 8 feet to 37.5 feet, a deluge with as much volume as an aircraft carrier over five minutes.

At a Wednesday morning press conference, Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha declined to answer a question about delayed emergency alerts, saying that an "after-action" would follow the search and rescue efforts. "Those questions are gonna be answered," he added.

Daniel Morales, assistant chief of the Comfort Volunteer Fire Department, believes that long, flat tone the morning of July Fourth saved lives.

FOX 4’s Steven Dial rode along the Guadalupe River with the sheriff of Andrews County, located in West Texas, to get his first-hand account of the recovery effort.

With more than 170 still missing, communities must reconcile how to pick up the pieces around a waterway that remains both a wellspring and a looming menace.

It took just 90 minutes for the river to rise more than 30 feet. A look at the historic flood levels now etched into Central Texas history.