Texas flooding updates: Over 130 dead as flash flood threat increases in Texas

A Kerrville-area river authority executed a contract last month for a flood warning system that would’ve been used to help with emergency response, local government officials said in response to a request by ABC News.

"An initial kickoff meeting was scheduled for mid-July," an unidentified spokesperson for the area’s Joint Information Center wrote.

A review of minutes of local government meetings shows that some county commissioners, sheriffs and other leaders have urged improved flood warning systems in the area for decades.

During a meeting on April 17, the Upper Guadalupe River Authority’s Board of Directors unanimously voted to select a company to develop a flood warning system in Kerr County.

The contract was for “a centralized dashboard to support local flood monitoring and emergency response,” which would allow emergency managers to view real-time streamflow and rainfall data all on one platform, according to local officials.

The system would not issue public alerts, but would serve as "a decision-support resource intended to complement existing infrastructure," officials said.

The spokesperson for the Joint Information Center told ABC News, "In light of recent events the timeline [of the new system] will be reevaluated."

-ABC News’ Jared Kofsky

In hard-hit Kerr County, the death toll has climbed to 95, including 36 children, Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha said at a news conference Wednesday.

The statewide death toll stands at 118.

Kerr County's number of missing persons remains at 161, including five campers and one counselor from Camp Mystic.

"This incident will be reviewed -- you have my word,” the sheriff said, adding that improvements will be made if needed.

Kerrville police commended the officers who in the darkness of early Friday morning "realized that areas of town that traditionally don't flood were going to flood, and that low lying areas close to the river were in danger."

"Our officers spent hours going back and forth in that first hour. They evacuated over 100 homes and evacuated and rescued over 200 people," Kerrville police community services officer Jonathan Lamb said.

Officers went "door-to-door, waking people up, convincing them that, ‘Yes, the floodwaters are coming, and you need to leave now,'" he said. "They rescued people out of vehicles. They rescued people out of homes that were already flooding, pulling them out of windows."

Lamb said the tragedy would have been worse without officers’ quick-thinking.

At least 173 people are missing in Texas in the wake of the devastating flooding.

The vast majority of the missing -- 161 people -- are in hard-hit Kerr County.

Ten were reported missing in Travis County and another two are missing in Burnet County.

The thunder and lighting came to Camp Mystic first, but that was normal. The storm and the driving rain at the Texas camp woke up some of the campers, including Georgia and Eloise Jones, at about 1 a.m. on July 4.

At first the pair thought nothing of it, they told ABC News. After all, it had been raining on and off for days.

But within an hour or so, the girls knew something was wrong, they said, when campers from another cabin showed up at their door, saying theirs had been flooded.

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