The early warnings and alerts from the National Weather Service didn’t indicate a catastrophic flood was on its way.

Federal forecasters issued their first flood warning at 1:14 a.m. on July 4. Local officials haven’t shed light on when they saw the warnings or whether they saw them in time to take action.

This part of Texas Hill Country is known for flash floods. Why were so many people caught off guard when the river turned violent?

New audio reveals what Kerr County first responders were hearing and acting on during the critical first few hours of the devastating floods. | Click to listen

In the last nine years, federal funding for a system has been denied to the county as it contends with a tax base hostile to government overspending.

Since 2016, the topic of a "flood warning system" for Kerr County has come up at 20 different county commissioners' meetings, according to minutes. The idea for a system was first introduced by Kerr County Commissioner Thomas Moser and Emergency Management Coordinator Dub Thomas in March 2016.

Plans to develop a flood monitoring system in the Texas county hit hardest by deadly floods were scheduled to begin only a few weeks later.