At a Wednesday morning press conference, Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha declined to answer a question about delayed emergency alerts, saying that an "after-action" would follow the search and rescue efforts. "Those questions are gonna be answered," he added.

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.

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.

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.

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.

A Kerrville-area river authority executed a contract for a flood warning system that would have been used to help with emergency response, local officials said.

The search for bodies continued nearly a week after deadly flooding in Texas. With 121 people confirmed dead and at least 161 still missing, officials there are facing scrutiny. The National Weather Service issued several watches and warnings before midnight on July 3,

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.

The grim task of searching for the scores of people missing from the devastating flood that struck Texas Hill Country nearly a week ago is taking an agonizing toll on searchers.