at least two deaths<\/a>. In Kerrville, where floods wrecked areas still in the process of recovering from last summer\u2019s deluge, Mayor Joe Herring Jr. said all residents were accounted for as of Thursday night.<\/p>\n\u201cWe had better warning,\u201d he said in a phone interview.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m thankful to the state of Texas and the Upper Guadalupe River Authority for working to install an automated, data-driven warning system,\u201d he added. \u201cAnd that helped save lives today.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the latest disaster also underscored a need to continue investing in improved forecasting and warning systems, said Phil Bedient, a professor at Rice University working on such a project.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s wonderful to have that warning going off,\u201d Dr. Bedient said of the new siren systems. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to have more than that to have a bona fide early flood warning system.\u201d<\/p>\n
Texas made significant investments in flood warning systems after the tragedy last July. The state legislature and Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, approved $50 million for warning systems, rain and river gauges and other flood infrastructure.<\/p>\n
Much of that was in place before this week\u2019s storms, including sirens that blared across Kerr County, home to the worst of the flooding last summer.<\/p>\n
Other work is still ongoing.<\/p>\n
The Upper Guadalupe River Authority, a group responsible for guarding the health of the river, installed new sirens in May, and said three of them activated this week in areas where flooding was significant. Tara Bushnoe, the authority\u2019s general manager, said it plans to install more sirens and river and rain gauges, and to develop models to better predict flooding.<\/p>\n
Dr. Bedient and colleagues at the University of Texas, Arlington, are using $4 million from the state to develop a system to monitor rainfall on radar and use computer models to compare that data with a range of flooding scenarios. The goal is to increase the lead time for warning systems like flood sirens, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey will then know to turn sirens on even before the flood gets there,\u201d Dr. Bedient said.<\/p>\n
Researchers at Texas Tech University are using another $24 million in state funds to increase radar coverage and capability for meteorological analysis across Hill Country and other parts of rural Texas where flood risks are high but forecasting can be spotty.<\/p>\n
River Sentry installed devices, including the ones that alerted campers in Ingram, using private fund-raising led by the owners of Camp Mystic, where 28 children and counselors died in last July\u2019s floods. Each device cost $8,000, said Ian Cunningham, the company\u2019s CEO.<\/p>\n
The company, based in the Austin area, plans to add more capabilities, including connecting the network of devices wirelessly and adding small, portable sensors that people can keep with them to receive flood alerts and call for help when needed, Mr. Cunningham said.<\/p>\n
Mr. Cunningham also works as an American Airlines pilot, but because he has two daughters who attend summer camp, he used his background in the U.S. Navy to lead River Sentry\u2019s quick work to build the flood warning system.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can\u2019t have what occurred last summer occur here again,\u201d Mr. Cunningham said.<\/p>\n
Pooja Salhotra contributed reporting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was after 3 a.m. Thursday when Joe Swann got word from someone at a bar perched on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":378391,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[9982,9985,9987,128240,858,514,110274,113616,133804,27,29,28,873],"class_list":["post-378390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-floods","tag-guadalupe-river-tex","tag-kerr-county-tex","tag-kerrville-tex","tag-research","tag-rice-university","tag-rivers","tag-security-and-warning-systems","tag-sensors","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-texas-tech-university"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=378390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378390\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/378391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}