Texas flood before-and-after pictures show devastating toll of catastrophe which left 120 dead and 173 missing - Crews are digging through mountains of debris along the Guadalupe River as they continu

KERRVILLE, Texas (AP) — Over the last decade, an array of Texas state and local agencies missed opportunities to fund a flood warning system intended to avert a disaster like the one that killed dozens of young campers and scores of others in Kerr County on the Fourth of July.

Most summers, Kerrville, Texas, draws crowds for its July 4 celebration. This year, the streets are filled with emergency responders.

In what experts call "Flash Flood Alley," the terrain reacts quickly to rainfall steep slopes, rocky ground, and narrow riverbeds leave little time for warning.

With more than 170 still missing, communities must reconcile how to pick up the pieces around a waterway that remains both a wellspring and a looming menace.

Texas officials refused to answer many serious questions about how prepared they were for the deadly flooding that struck the area on July 4th.

Growing up near the Guadalupe River in Kerrville, Texas, could sometimes feel like living near a volcano. I was born two blocks away from the gorgeous river that flows from the Hill Country to the Gulf of Mexico, just one year before the devastating and deadly 1987 flash flood, often described around town as the “big one.”

A flash flood in Texas has claimed the lives of more than 100 people, including at least two dozen campers and counselors from Camp Mystic, an all-girls camp on the