JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
In Kerr County, Texas, officials have updated the death toll from the July 4 flooding. More than 100 people died in the flood, the majority of them here in Kerr County. That number includes more than two dozen children. The search continues to find and identify more flood victims. In the meantime, local officials are refusing to discuss what action they took to warn residents before the flood began. NPR's Greg Allen is covering the story. He's here with me now in Kerrville. Hi, Greg.
GREG ALLEN, BYLINE: Hi, Juana.
SUMMERS: So Greg, this question of accountability, it's come up over and over again since the day following the flood. Why have officials been so reluctant to discuss what actions they took?
ALLEN: Well, I think it's clear they just don't have any good answers to share at this point. You know, and it's not just the media asking these questions. I've heard from residents when I've been out who are wondering why they didn't get any warnings before the flood from county emergency officials. In the town of Hunt, Brad Philp has an Airbnb where four adults and five children were staying on July 4. He says they barely escaped with their lives.
BRAD PHILP: They tried to open the front door, couldn't get out the front door, came through a window, were able to get across the street. The first house they got to, they actually woke the people up by them knocking. They let them in. They stayed there for a second. That house started to flood. They kept working their way up the hill.
ALLEN: And, you know, complicating things is that this area along the river is fairly remote, with spotty cellphone service at the best of times. People have told me that there was no cellphone service the day of the flood.
SUMMERS: Wow. So what do we know about what warnings were sent out and who sent them?
ALLEN: Well, the National Weather Service warned on Thursday - the day before the flood - that there was a considerable flash-flood risk for Kerr County. At 1:14 a.m. on Friday morning, emergency alerts went out for Kerr County. If someone had a NOAA weather radio, they would have heard that alert. But of course, most residents don't have those radios. So that means the first notice most people received about the flood was when the water started coming into their home. At a briefing today, Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha said even he wasn't notified of the flood emergency until between 4 and 5 a.m.
SUMMERS: Wow.
ALLEN: And he's the sheriff of the county.
SUMMERS: Right.
ALLEN: So at the news conference today, when asked what alerts the county sent out, he wouldn't answer.
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LARRY LEITHA: We're in the process of trying to put a timeline. You know, that's going to take a little bit of time. As I've told you several times, that is not my priority at this time. There's three priorities - that's locating the people out there, identifying and notifying the next of kin. That is what I'm taking as my job as sheriff here to do.
ALLEN: The questions keep coming up, however, and the daily briefings from Kerr County officials have become somewhat heated and tense as a result of that.
SUMMERS: Right. And Greg, I know that you have been going out, as we have, with some of the crews who are working to search for survivors, recover victims of the flood. Tell us how that's been going.
ALLEN: Right. Well, you know, hundreds of emergency workers and volunteers are combing through debris along several miles of the Guadalupe River looking for flood victims, and several more were found yesterday. The recovery effort, though, is clearly going to take a while. Lt. Col. Ben Baker with Texas Game Wardens says there are dozens of miles of debris to be combed through along both sides of the river.
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BEN BAKER: And to get deep into these piles, it's very hazardous. And those specialized teams have to go in there layer by layer because our first responders, also the safety of them is a concern. So it's extremely treacherous, time-consuming. It's dirty work. It's - the water's still there.
ALLEN: Officials said today that some bodies had been released to the families, but at this point, DNA analysis is being required for many of the identifications, so it's going to be a long, slow process.
SUMMERS: That's NPR's Greg Allen, part of our NPR team here in central Texas covering the flooding. Greg, thank you.
ALLEN: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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