Flooding has been on the high of Kerr County residents’ minds following the deadly floods of the final week, however an evaluation by ABC Information and ABC Owned Tv Stations of public assembly data reveals this isn’t the primary time that the necessity for flood-related measures has come up amongst native officers.
As early as 2016, Kerr County Commissioners spoke in regards to the significance of an improved flood warning system and funding alternatives to implement such a system. These conversations addressed each the chance of flooding within the Guadalupe Basin and the inadequacy of the prevailing warning infrastructure.
“We’re very flood susceptible, we all know that,” stated Kerr County Commissioner Jonathan Letz at a fee assembly, in accordance with minutes. “In all probability Precinct 4 has [the] most threat of the general public on the market.”
In April of this yr, the Higher Guadalupe River Authority, a authorities company that describes itself on-line partly as working “to guard the well being of the Guadalupe River watershed in Kerr County by managing water high quality and water amount,” was in discussions a few flood warning system venture.
Throughout a gathering on April 17, the authority’s Board of Administrators unanimously voted to pick out an organization generally known as Kisters “because the agency to develop a Flood Warning System in Kerr County.” Assembly minutes present the corporate was slated to obtain a contract price as much as almost $73,000 as a part of the proposed system, the standing of which is at the moment unclear.
The Higher Guadalupe River Authority and Kisters couldn’t instantly be reached for remark.
This was not the primary venture proposed to handle flooding issues within the Guadalupe Basin.
Crews work to clear particles from the Cade Loop bridge alongside the Guadalupe River on July 5, 2025, in Ingram, Texas.
Rodolfo Gonzalez/AP
Almost a decade earlier in August 2016, Kerr County, the Metropolis of Kerrville and the Higher Guadalupe River Authority, put out a Request for Qualifications for Engineering Companies to evaluate the state of flood monitoring and warning within the Guadalupe Basin.
In a September 2016 preliminary examine report, an engineering agency famous that Kerr County in Texas has a “better threat of flash flooding than most areas of the U.S.” The county and UGRA spent $50,000 on the examine.
“Heavy rains can shortly lead to fast-moving water with nice harmful potential,” the agency stated, pointing to a 2015 flood in a close-by county the place the river rose 20 toes in lower than an hour. 13 fatalities, together with two kids, resulted from the flooding within the space, in accordance with native studies.
“In gentle of the numerous and lethal flooding occasions in 2015, [the Texas Water Development Board] is inserting a excessive precedence on enhancing the skills of communities to warn residents and reply to flood emergencies in a well timed and efficient method,” the agency really useful.
The examine said that the “events” which embody the County, the Higher Guadalupe River Authority and the Metropolis of Kerrville “mutually acknowledge the potential threat to the security and property of their constituents offered by flash flooding in Kerr County, Texas.”
“[An] efficient Flood Warning System would probably permit property house owners to vacate properties the place threat to life by floodwaters is imminent,” the report stated.
The evaluation really useful including excessive water detection programs in flood-prone areas, visible gauges at dozens of low water crossings and an data heart to disseminate the info gathered to native officers and talk flood warnings to the general public. The venture was anticipated to price round $976,000.
Primarily based on the examine, a committee of native emergency administration coordinators, state transportation officers and the engineer of the prevailing flood detection and warning system concluded that the system in place, which included water stage monitoring in 20 flood-prone areas, “is antiquated and it isn’t dependable.”
However according to the minutes from a January 2017 fee assembly, Commissioner Thomas Moser urged the county may “simply neglect the entire venture” if native companions did not signal on.
Decide Tom Pollard reportedly responded, “Simply useless within the water.”
