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.

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.

Kerr County applied for federal grants to build a warning system to protect residents from flash floods. Under the Trump Administration, that kind of funding is drying up.

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.