Flooding has been at the top of Kerr County residents’ minds following the deadly floods of the last week, but an analysis by ABC News and ABC Owned Television Stations of public meeting records shows this is not the first time that the need for flood-related measures has come up among local officials.
As early as 2016, Kerr County Commissioners spoke about the importance of an improved flood warning system and funding opportunities to implement such a system. These conversations addressed both the risk of flooding in the Guadalupe Basin and the inadequacy of the existing warning infrastructure.
“We are very flood prone, we know that,” said Kerr County Commissioner Jonathan Letz at a commission meeting, according to minutes. “Probably Precinct 4 has [the] most risk of the public out there.”
In April of this year, the Upper Guadalupe River Authority, a government agency that describes itself online in part as working “to protect the health of the Guadalupe River watershed in Kerr County by managing water quality and water quantity,” was in discussions about a flood warning system project.
During a meeting on April 17, the authority’s Board of Directors unanimously voted to select a company known as Kisters “as the firm to develop a Flood Warning System in Kerr County.” Meeting minutes show the company was slated to receive a contract worth up to nearly $73,000 as part of the proposed system, the status of which is currently unclear.
The Upper Guadalupe River Authority and Kisters could not immediately be reached for comment.
This was not the first project proposed to address flooding concerns in the Guadalupe Basin.
Nearly a decade earlier in August 2016, Kerr County, the City of Kerrville and the Upper Guadalupe River Authority, put out a Request for Qualifications for Engineering Services to assess the state of flood monitoring and warning in the Guadalupe Basin.
In a September 2016 preliminary study report, an engineering firm noted that Kerr County in Texas has a “greater risk of flash flooding than most regions of the U.S.” The county and UGRA spent $50,000 on the study.
“Heavy rains can quickly result in fast-moving water with great destructive potential,” the firm said, pointing to a 2015 flood in a nearby county where the river rose 20 feet in less than an hour. Thirteen fatalities, including two children, resulted from the flooding in the area, according to local reports.
“In light of the significant and deadly flooding events in 2015, [the Texas Water Development Board] is placing a high priority on enhancing the abilities of communities to warn citizens and respond to flood emergencies in a timely and effective manner,” the firm recommended.
The study stated that the “parties” which include the County, the Upper Guadalupe River Authority and the City of Kerrville “mutually recognize the potential risk to the safety and property of their constituents presented by flash flooding in Kerr County, Texas.”
“[An] effective Flood Warning System would potentially allow property owners to vacate properties where risk to life by floodwaters is imminent,” the report said.
The assessment recommended adding high water detection systems in flood-prone areas, visual gauges at dozens of low water crossings and an information center to disseminate the data gathered to local officials and communicate flood warnings to the public. The project was expected to cost around $976,000.
Based on the study, a committee of local emergency management coordinators, state transportation officials and the engineer of the existing flood detection and warning system concluded that the system in place, which included water level monitoring in 20 flood-prone areas, “is antiquated and it’s not reliable.”
But according to the minutes from a January 2017 commission meeting, Commissioner Thomas Moser suggested the county might “just forget the whole project” if local partners didn’t sign on.
Judge Tom Pollard reportedly responded, “Just dead in the water.”
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