The flooding created financial peril for many small businesses owners. Now they are cleaning up and working to get back on their feet.

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.

As the Guadalupe River swelled from a wall of water heading downstream, sirens blared over the tiny river community of Comfort -- a last-ditch warning to get out for those who had missed cellphone alerts and firefighters going street-to-street telling people to get out.

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.

Since 2016, the topic of a "flood warning system" for Kerr County has come up at 20 different county commissioners' meetings, according to minutes. The idea for a system was first introduced by Kerr County Commissioner Thomas Moser and Emergency Management Coordinator Dub Thomas in March 2016.

Miriam "Holly" Frizzell of Abilene was remembered for her vibrant life and love of the normally tranquil Guadalupe River.

This isn't the first time flooding along the Guadalupe River has claimed lives. Jim Moore was a reporter who covered an eerily similar flood nearly four decades ago.

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.