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.

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.

Kerr County applied for federal grants to build a warning system to protect residents from flash floods. Under the Trump administration, that kind of funding is drying up.

A major flood event also struck the Texas Hill Country in July of 1987 after a series of 17 thunderstorms moved slowly, in succession, over the headwaters of the Guadalupe River in Kerr County. Anywhere from 5 to 10 inches of rain fell on the flood-prone areas, now deemed “Flash Flood Alley,” according to a National Weather Service report.

Kerr County and the Upper Guadalupe River Authority have tried several times to get funding to upgrade flood alerts on the river, dating back to 2016.

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.

Newly released satellite images reveal catastrophic damage caused by the Hill Country floods along the Guadalupe River.