KERRVILLE, Texas — Before heading to bed before the Fourth of July holiday, Christopher Flowers checked the weather while staying at a friend's house along the Guadalupe River. Nothing in the forecast alarmed him.
Hours later, he was rushing to safety: He woke up in darkness to electrical sockets popping and ankle-deep water. Quickly, his family scrambled nine people into the attic. Phones buzzed with alerts, Flowers recalled Saturday, but he did not remember when in the chaos they started.
''What they need is some kind of external system, like a tornado warning that tells people to get out now,'' Flowers, 44, said.
The destructive fast-moving waters that began before sunrise Friday in the Texas Hill Country killed at least 43 people in Kerr County, authorities said Saturday, and an unknown number of people remained missing. Those still unaccounted for included 27 girls from Camp Mystic, a Christian summer camp along a river in Kerr County where most of the dead were recovered.
But as authorities launch one of the largest search-and-rescue efforts in recent Texas history, they have come under intensifying scrutiny over preparations and why residents and youth summer camps that are dotted along the river were not alerted sooner or told to evacuate.
The National Weather Service sent out a series of flash flood warnings in the early hours Friday before issuing flash flood emergencies — a rare alert notifying of imminent danger.
Local officials have insisted that no one saw the flood potential coming and have defended their actions.
''There's going to be a lot of finger-pointing, a lot of second-guessing and Monday morning quarterbacking,'' said Republican U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, whose district includes Kerr County. ''There's a lot of people saying ‘why' and ‘how,' and I understand that.''