Kerr County first tried to secure $1 million for a flood warning system in 2017, but could not. Could such a system have prevented loss of life on July 4?

FEMA records show Kerr County officials did not use FEMA’s system to send warnings to phones in the critical hours as the flooding began on July 4.

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.