STORY: :: City of Kerrville, TX

Texas state lawmakers on Thursday held a special legislative session in Kerrville, the seat of the county hardest-hit by catastrophic flash flooding that killed at least 137 people last month, one of the deadliest U.S. flood events in decades.

Several local officials on Thursday faced intense scrutiny about their response to the disaster.

Here’s the Lieutenant Governor of Texas Dan Patrick addressing Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly:

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“I don’t know where you were on day one, on July fourth, but you should have been here. You should have been here directing that response.”

“Everyone was here that day working their asses off, and you were nowhere to be found.”

Kelly said that nothing seemed out of the ordinary the day prior and no extreme weather alerts had been received.

He said he had been at a lake house when the flash flooding occurred, sending a wall of water down the Guadalupe River, washing away camps of children and Fourth of July weekend goers.

Kerr County Emergency Management Coordinator William B. Thomas IV also testified about his whereabouts during the flooding.

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:: Patrick Keely

Thomas explained he had been recovering from illness when the disaster struck, but that he “reported immediately” to the sheriff’s office after being alerted.

“To those who ask, ‘what would you have done differently?’ The honest answer is that based on the data we had at the time, there was no clear indicator that a catastrophic flood was imminent.”

The high death toll has raised concerns about vacancies at National Weather Service offices due to staffing cuts under President Donald Trump, as well as questions about the lack of flash-flood warning sirens in Kerr County.

At several points during the hearing, officials appeared at odds on that front.

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:: Robert Ivey

While Kerrville’s mayor asked lawmakers to help get a flood warning system in place by next summer, the county sheriff questioned whether a warning system would have done any good, saying the water “came too fast.”

:: City of Kerrville, TX

James Doss-Gollin is an Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Rice University, as well as an expert on flooding and emergency alert systems.

He believes that a more robust alert system would have helped save lives.

“Had that been in place, we couldn’t have protected the property that got damaged, but we could have saved hopefully almost every life. I don’t want to say every single one, but death during a flash flood is ultimately preventable.”

Speaker of the House Dustin Burrows said lawmakers would come up with “some solutions” during the 30-day special session but that the effort would take time.