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ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n\n By Claudia Lauer with The Associated Press (AP)<\/p>\n
\n Published on
\n 11\/07\/2025 – 15:58 GMT+2<\/p>\n
ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n
When the Guadalupe River began rising fast on 4 July, emergency sirens blared across the small Texas town of Comfort.<\/p>\n
Their long, flat tone \u2013 a final warning to evacuate for those who had not done so \u2013 saved lives, says Daniel Morales, assistant chief of the Comfort Volunteer Fire Department.<\/p>\n
The sirens are a testament to the determination of a community that has experienced deadly floods in the past, warning residents of devastating floodwaters that hours earlier had killed at least 118 people in communities along the same river, including 27 campers and counsellors in neighbouring Kerr County.<\/p>\n
That county did not have a warning system like the one in Comfort.<\/p>\n
Everyone in Comfort, a town of more than 2,200 people in unincorporated Kendall County, survived the flooding<\/a>, with many riverside residents evacuating in time, Morales said.<\/p>\n Learning from history<\/p>\n Morales has been with the department for decades. He was there when flooding in 1978 killed 33 people, 15 of them in Comfort, including his grandfather. So when an opportunity arose last year to expand the community\u2019s emergency warning<\/a> system, he and other residents found a way to fund it.<\/p>\n The fire department\u2019s siren needed an upgrade. While the firehouse got a new siren, Morales found a Missouri company willing to refurbish the old one at a low cost so it could be moved to a central location in Comfort Park and connected to a US Geological Survey sensor at Cypress Creek.<\/p>\n When the water reaches a certain level, the sensor triggers the siren, but it can also be sounded manually.<\/p>\n \u201cWe do [it] for ourselves and for the community,\u201d Morales said. \u201cIf we hadn\u2019t had a drought the past months and the [Cypress] Creek hadn\u2019t been down, we could have had another [flood like in 1978]. The past few days, I\u2019ll tell you, it brings back a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n Funding emergency infrastructure<\/p>\n Morales said they cobbled together money from a grant, the county commission, the department\u2019s own budget and the local electric utility, which also donated a siren pole. They also got help installing the flood sensor<\/a> gauge in the creek.<\/p>\n The total cost with donated materials and departmental expenses was somewhere around $50,000 to $60,000 \u2013 about \u20ac43,000 to \u20ac51,000 \u2013 \u201cmaybe a little more,\u201d Morales said.<\/p>\n In Kerr County, the price tag for a proposed flood warning system covering a larger stretch of the Guadalupe River was close to \u20ac850,000. Several county and city officials backed away when grants and funding fell through. The system ultimately was not installed near the camps where dozens of young campers died in the recent flood.<\/p>\n Comal County, Texas \u2013 about 90 miles, or 145 kilometres, east of Kerr County \u2013 completed its own siren project in 2015 with funding from several local entities. The county now manages the system and river height data. Officials there did not respond to requests for details about costs.<\/p>\n Training residents to respond<\/p>\n After the updated Comfort sirens were installed, the volunteer<\/a> fire department spent months getting the community accustomed to the siren tests that sound daily at 12pm, putting out messaging that if they hear a siren any other time, they should check local TV stations, the department\u2019s Facebook page and other outlets for emergency notifications.<\/p>\n