Kerr County repeatedly failed to secure a warning system, even as local officials remained aware of the risks and as billions of dollars were available for similar projects.

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.

The number of people reported missing in Kerr County, Texas, as a result of last week’s flash floods continues to soar. Authorities say search teams combing through the debris and destruction there are looking for more than 160 people who disappeared in the raging waters.

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.

Over the last decade, an array of local and state agencies have missed opportunities to fund a flood warning system intended to avert the type of disaster that swept away dozens of youth campers and others in Kerr County,

Crews are using construction equipment to clear vehicles, trees and homes in a race to locate the 161 people still missing since Friday’s devastating flood.