MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
In Central Texas, crews are continuing the search for victims of last week's flash flooding.
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
At least 82 people died, with 68 of the deaths in Kerr County. Kerr County's sheriff says 28 of those deaths were children. Many of them were staying in youth camps on the banks of the Guadalupe River. In the days since the storm, local officials have been dealing with tough questions about why children in the camps, and others who live along the river, were not warned to evacuate.
MARTIN: NPR's Greg Allen is with us now from Kerrville. Greg, good morning.
GREG ALLEN, BYLINE: Good morning.
MARTIN: So first, let's just talk about the ongoing search for victims. What are some of the obstacles facing rescuers?
ALLEN: Well, you know, Michel, it's a very difficult environment for recovery crews here. I spent some time along the Guadalupe River yesterday and just saw horrific scenes. You know, the river rose 26 feet in just 45 minutes early Friday morning. And when it did, it swept trees, cars and houses into the flood and carried them downstream. I saw cars piled up in trees, huge amounts of rubble and debris that were left by the river. Now crews are going to have to sort through all that stuff to look for victims. And there are still about 30 victims, adults and children, who've not been identified.
MARTIN: Look, I know this is a difficult thing to talk about right now. But why didn't local officials warn people along the river to evacuate?
ALLEN: Well, it's a question that keeps coming up repeatedly since Friday. You know, some of the people who are asking it are the people who live in that area down by the river. I talked to Wendy Barker yesterday. She lives in Hunt, which is a community that was just devastated by the flooding. Barker's home is high enough that she wasn't flooded, but she wonders why she and others in the community never received any alerts.
WENDY BARKER: I woke up multiple times during the middle of the night, heard it raining, but never got any warnings on our phone about any flash flooding or anything like that. I did not personally, from the Weather Service or anybody. But - we didn't get those until later on in the morning.
ALLEN: The National Weather Service did begin warning of the potential for flooding on Wednesday and upgraded it on Thursday. The declaration of a deadly flash flood emergency didn't go out until nearly a foot of rain fell, which wasn't until the early morning hours on Friday. The question is, what did local emergency managers do with all that information?
MARTIN: So what are local officials saying?
ALLEN: Well, they say the focus now should be on recovery, and the questions about why alerts didn't go out and why evacuations weren't ordered should wait for later. But at a briefing yesterday, Kerrville City Manager Dalton Rice got repeated questions about it, and he became defensive.
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DALTON RICE: And so as we were, you know, preparing for it, unfortunately, the rain hit at the most inopportune time and right in the most inopportune areas, where the north and the south were hit. It converged, and so here we are. So again, we want to continue to focus on those rescue operations. And with that, we're not taking any more questions. Thank you.
MARTIN: OK, Greg. You know, you've done a lot of reporting on the growing threat of inland flooding related to tropical systems. So tell us - why is it happening?
ALLEN: Well, the rain bomb that fell on Kerr County was fueled by the remnants of Tropical Storm Barry, which hit Mexico last week and then curved up into Texas. It's the kind of thing we also saw last year when Helene weakened from being a hurricane, but then dumped as much as 30 inches of rain over parts of Tennessee and North Carolina. Now, these are areas where people are familiar with flash flooding, so much so that they sometimes call it nuisance flooding. Texas Governor Greg Abbott talked about it yesterday.
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GREG ABBOTT: There's the potential for flash flooding, but there's no expectation of a water wall of almost 30 feet high.
ALLEN: What we've been seeing in recent years is more and more of these big rain events and deaths from freshwater flooding. One factor is climate change, which scientists say is making tropical systems larger and wetter. It's a challenge for emergency managers, and also for people who live in areas where rivers sometimes flood. The question is how to stay alert for flash floods that can quickly become deadly and how to get residents to do the same thing.
MARTIN: That is NPR's Greg Allen in Kerrville, Texas. Greg, thank you.
ALLEN: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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