In his first press conference after the deadly floods last weekend, Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly said unequivocally that the area did not have an emergency alert system.
"We have no warning system," he said on the morning of July 4, just hours after the Guadalupe River topped its banks. When pushed about why evacuations did not occur earlier, Kelly doubled down. "We didn't know this flood was coming. Rest assured, no one knew this kind of flood was coming. …This is the most dangerous river valley in the United States."
And when asked Tuesday at what time warnings were issued, Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha said he was focused on search and rescue.
"It's not that easy, and you just push a button. Okay? There's a lot more to that, and we've told you several times," he said. A reporter then asked, "Did it happen?" to which Leitha responded, "I can't tell you at this time."
But The Texas Newsroom has learned that not only does the county have a mass-alert system for public emergencies, first responders asked that it be triggered early Friday morning.
The Guadalupe River rose as much as 26 feet in 45 minutes around 4 a.m., said Lt Gov. Dan Patrick.
According to emergency radio transmissions The Texas Newsroom reviewed, volunteer firefighters asked for what's called a "CodeRED" alert to be sent as early as 4:22 a.m. Dispatchers delayed, saying they needed special authorization.
Some residents received flood warnings from CodeRED within an hour. Others told The Texas Newsroom they did not receive their first alert until after 10 a.m., raising questions about why the messages that residents received were sporadic and inconsistent.
As the massive rescue and recovery effort continues, so does a deluge of questions for Kerr County officials. More than 100 people have died across the state, including at least 94 locally as of Tuesday afternoon. Gov. Greg Abbott says there are still 161 people missing in the county.
Local officials did not respond to questions about exactly when and where CodeRED was triggered and what the county judge meant when he said the area has no alert system. The CodeRED alerts are separate from other warnings issued through cell phones but may include some of the same information, like federal flood warnings.
CodeRED, which has been in place in Kerr County since 2009, isn't foolproof and may not reach all residents and visitors. But company representatives told The Texas Newsroom that the system can be used to alert people in real time about flood dangers.
"CodeRED…has been trusted by government agencies since 1998 to provide real-time emergency information. CodeRED has a successful history of public safety messaging using the National Weather Service warning products or manual alerts as initiated by a local authority or jurisdiction," said a company representative.
Inconsistent alerts
John David Trolinger, the former information technology director for Kerr County, told The Texas Newsroom that he helped install the CodeRED system. He also provided hours of radio communications he recorded in the early hours of the flood.
His recordings show calls to emergency dispatchers about rising flood waters started coming in around 3 a.m. on July 4. A volunteer firefighter asked for the mass notification system to be used as early as 4:22 am.
"We still have water coming up," the firefighter, who was unidentified in the recording, told emergency dispatchers. He said a highway sign near the river was already underwater. "Is there any way we can send a CodeRED out to our Hunt residents asking them to find higher ground or stay home?"
Hunt is an unincorporated area in western Kerr County that was particularly hard hit by the flooding.
The dispatcher said on the recordings that she needed authorization from a supervisor to issue an alert.
Ceslie Armstrong, who lives in San Antonio but has a property in Center Point in Kerr County, said she got an alert from CodeRED at 5:34 a.m. telling her that the National Weather Service had issued a flash flood warning for her area.
She did not receive another CodeRED message until after 10 a.m. Screenshots she provided to The Texas Newsroom show a third message at nearly 11 a.m. was sent directly from Kerr County dispatch and warned of "another expected rise" of the river in the next hour.
"Stay away from the river and low water crossings," the alert read. "Shelter in place unless you are in immediate danger then move to higher ground if possible."
Louis Kocurek, another Center Point local, said he did not receive his first CodeRED alert until after 10 a.m. He said he wishes the alert went out earlier.
"It should have been an immediate county-wide alert. I'm at the far end of where most of the devastation is, but we're still close to the river and close to a creek," Kocurek told The Texas Newsroom.
Trolinger, who lives in Kerrville, said his family also did not receive its first CodeRED alerts until after 10 a.m. He said issuing the alert is a fairly straightforward process.
"They hit the button, and then the phone calls, the emails and the voicemails start going to every single phone number, every single email, every single text message," he said.
CodeRED drawbacks
According to information on the Kerr County website, CodeRED "has the ability to notify the entire county or only the affected areas of the county about emergency situations in a matter of minutes." The system was approved by county commissioners in 2009 for $25,000 a year.
"The system delivers pre-recorded emergency telephone messages, such as during instances of severe weather," the site adds, "and other emergency situations where rapid and accurate notification is essential for life safety."
Historically, the Kerr County sheriff has had the ultimate authority on sending an alert out to the public. The department did not respond to questions about whether this authority has changed under the current sheriff or why the CodeRED alerts appeared to be inconsistent.
But CodeRED has some drawbacks.
It uses publicly available phone numbers and voluntary sign ups to send text messages, voicemails, and emails to people in the area specified by government officials sending the alert.
This means its warnings may not go out to all residents or visitors in a disaster area.
Kocurek said he signed up for CodeRED during the COVID-19 pandemic and often became frustrated with the app because it was sending too many alerts. Many of his friends and neighbors, including his wife, had not signed up for the app at all, he said.
According to the company, CodeRED can also utilize IPAWS, the Integrated Public Alert & Warning System funded by FEMA, alerting all phones in a geographical area, regardless of being enrolled.
It's unclear how many people in the area signed up or whether the IPAWS feature was triggered. County officials did not answer The Texas Newsroom's questions about the alert's reach.
The Kerrville Daily Times reported in 2012 that 18,451 people signed up for CodeRED alerts.
CodeRED alerts also may be inaudible if a user's cell phone sound is off.
"Some can be inaudible if the device is turned down or muted, some can be allowed to override device settings depending on iOS or Android versions, and some can override all setting such as WEA [Wireless Emergency] Alerts," said a representative of the company that owns CodeRED.
Cell service during the flooding was also spotty, especially in the county's most rural areas. Many of the children at camps along the river also did not have phones with them, according to media reports.
Trolinger said "it's impossible to know" whether a more expansive use of CodeRED would have saved lives.
Having installed some of the CodeRED system, he even considered calling the dispatchers himself to repeat the request for a public alert. But he said he worried about delaying first responders from reaching people with emergencies.
"I was afraid to even make one phone call myself personally into dispatch because someone might die because they didn't get through," he said.
Other flood warning systems
Local officials have praised CodeRED as effective — if used alongside other warning systems.
In the past, the system has been used to alert residents to grass fires, school evacuation plans and even a patient who escaped from a state hospital. He was found within a day. Officials considered but opted not to use it during a torrential downpour in March 2012.
Kerr County does not employ weather sirens, although officials have debated and sought funding for low-water crossing sirens and public announcements that would play physically. That was always intended to be used in conjunction with a mass notification system like CodeRED, said former county officials, who worried about the geographical limitations of sirens.
"It's mainly getting the public advised at that time, CodeRED is great for it," former Kerr County Sheriff William "Rusty" Hierholzer said during a commissioners' court meeting held in late 2016.
Hierholzer declined an interview request for this story.
That year, the Kerrville Daily Times wrote an opinion piece arguing that the cost of improving the system was negligible compared to the loss of life.
"[CodeRED] is only as good as the information that goes into it," it wrote. "Limited cellphone and radio access in West Kerr County along with few river monitoring stations often means the people of Kerrville won't know about a potentially dangerous situation until a river of water is beating on our back doors."
While locals said CodeRED alerts may have been inconsistent, requests for help poured into the 911 dispatch center. Dozens of water rescues and flooding calls inundated the center as outside help attempted to make it into Kerr County from neighboring areas.
The coast guard evacuated more than 200 people from the area — including 165 rescues attributed to one man. County officials were going door-to-door, according to residents.
John Kennedy told NPR that he and his son were roused from their sleep early in the morning.
"Kerr County sheriffs knocked on the door at 4 in the morning," he said, "and told us the river was in the backyard and we had to get out right now."
NPR reporter Sergio Martinez-Beltrán contributed reporting.
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