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.

Days after flash floods killed over 100 people during the July Fourth weekend, search-and-rescue teams are using heavy equipment to untangle and peel away layers of trees, unearth large rocks in riverbanks and move massive piles of debris that stretch for miles in the search for the missing people.

FEMA records show Kerr County officials did not use FEMA’s system to send warnings to phones in the critical hours as the flooding began on July 4.

Kerr County first tried to secure $1 million for a flood warning system in 2017, but could not. Could such a system have prevented loss of life on July 4?

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.