Officials in Kerr County, Texas — where 27 campers and counselors at a Christian summer camp were killed in catastrophic flooding — had discussed installing a flood warning system along the banks of the Guadalupe River, known as “Flash Flood Alley,” but it was rejected as too expensive.
Kerr County, home to around 50,000 people, had looked into installing sirens and river gauges along with other modern communication tools along the waterway in 2017, but ultimately decided against it, the New York Times reported.
“We can do all the water-level monitoring we want, but if we don’t get that information to the public in a timely way, then this whole thing is not worth it,” Kerr County Commissioner Tom Moser said at the time.
But the county, which has an annual budget of around $67 million, lost out on a bid to secure a $1 million grant to fund the project in 2017, county commission meeting minutes show.
Instead, local officials relied on a word-of-mouth system to pass messages about raging floodwaters downriver from the camps upstream.
In a recent interview, Rob Kelly, the Kerr County judge and its most senior elected official, said residents were hesitant about the high cost of a warning system.
“Taxpayers won’t pay for it,” he said, according to the Times.
Meanwhile, county commissioners discussed using a flood warning system being developed by a regional agency as recently as May, budget meeting minutes show.
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