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.

John David Trolinger, former information technology director for Kerr County, helped install the area's CodeRED emergency alert system. He shared with Jason Allen what he heard on the emergency radio transmissions as the Guadalupe River was quickly rising.

Heavy equipment is tearing through massive debris piles in Kerr County as the search for the missing continues.

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.

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.