The threat of heavy rain is “slight” for this weekend, but with the ground fully saturated in Kerr County even small amounts of rainfall could cause flooding.

A chain-link fence that separates Water Street in the center of Kerrville from the Guadalupe River just a few hundred feet away has become a makeshift memorial, with the flower-covered stretch serving as a focal point for a grieving community.

The reporter said that several families were angry because they felt that alerts for the flood did not go out in time.

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.

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.

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.

Twice, the Texas Division of Emergency Management turned down Kerr County's requests for money to improve flood warnings.

Federal forecasters issued their first flood warning at 1:14 a.m. on July 4. Local officials haven’t shed light on when they saw the warnings or whether they saw them in time to take action.