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.

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.

At least 120 people have been found dead since heavy rainfall overwhelmed the river and flowed through homes and youth camps in the early morning hours of July 4. Ninety-six of those killed were in the hardest-hit county in central Texas, Kerr County, where the toll includes at least 36 children.

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.

Since 2016, the topic of a "flood warning system" for Kerr County has come up at 20 different county commissioners' meetings, according to minutes. The idea for a system was first introduced by Kerr County Commissioner Thomas Moser and Emergency Management Coordinator Dub Thomas in March 2016.

KERR COUNTY, Texas — Kerr County leaders debated the issue of installing emergency sirens along the Guadalupe River nearly a decade ago, but one former official said there was pushback from some residents.

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.

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.

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.

The Guadalupe River in Texas surged 26 feet in just 45 minutes. It caught everyone off guard - What began as a routine flood developed into a deadly disaster, with the death toll now in triple digits