Kerr county discusions on a flood warning system

[moonshinegnomie]

This is from a reddit port but the transcripts of the commisioners meeting is accurate


In 2016 Kerr County contracted for an engineering study on their current warning system and were told it was antiquated and inadequate.

Commissioners' Court Regular Session 8/22/16

COMMISSIONER MOSER: We had at our steering committee meeting we invited also TxDOT to participate in that. So the original engineer, and both of them as a matter of fact showed up at that meeting. Their assessment was what existed today, and the Sheriff may want to comment on it, is antiquated and it's not reliable. So we said okay with that, you know, not just that, but we thought that there was a pretty ill-defined system that we have. So the engineering study we thought would be appropriate. If the result of the engineering study says that -- recommends that we enhance the system, okay, buying additional sensors, kind of like Comal County did. Comal County spent a little over three hundred thousand dollars, where they had add 8 locations to monitor the rate of rise of the river and streams.

COMMISSIONER REEVES: And while I agree with Commissioner Letz, that if we have a system that's not working, we need to certainly look at that, technology is great, but still one of the best things, and you may disagree with me is the people up river calling. Because you're probably going to get a call. I've received just this year from calls before it's even had time for a warning to go off, I'm getting texts from Divide Fire Chief, and I think -- where'd the Sheriff go? I sent you a text the other night, you may have got it too from him, but we're knowing probably before, and I know with one flood that we had earlier in the year, by the time you got the warnings going off, it had been too late. Because it was coming out of just some draws that took too long to get downstream.

COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I have one. I'm going to vote no because of numerous reasons. I think this whole thing is a little extravagant for Kerr County, and I see the word sirens and all that stuff in here. And of course, you say that these are steps that will be taken through the years. But that's where you're headed, there's no question in my mind that's where you're headed. And you're determined to do that. But step one of taking these funds out of special projects, out of Road and Bridge, that ticks me off a little bit.

Commissioners' Court Regular Session 10/24/16

Mr. Hewitt: Sirens did not seem to get very much support. The thought was that sirens are better for tourists than local residents. The sirens would only be beneficial for someone that's not familiar with the area, and wouldn't know what to do.

The second part of the study contained recommendations for updating the system and sirens were purposely left out even though other areas had implemented them.

Regular Commissioners' Court Agenda 01/09/17

Comal County has implemented a river guage and siren system that includes New Braunfels, Guadalupe County and the Water-Oriented Recreation District (WORD) as funding partners. When gauge heights reach a certain level, emergency management personnel are notified and the siren is automatically activated. Emergency personnel can also activiate the sirens remotely if they know flood water is headed downstream. The data from each gauge, including river height and rainfall, is avaiable online for anyone, including residents, to access.

The filed for federal assistance via a Hazard Mitigation Grant for 976k.

Commissioners' Court Regular Session 01/09/17 Discussing the recommended warning system

COMMISSIONER MOSER: The cost of that whole thing is going to be like 976 thousand dollars. That's a lot of money. All of it, and the reason we're here today and moving so quickly is that there is a FEMA grant that's available until as long as we apply by January the 20th.

JUDGE POLLARD: Which is when President Obama goes out of office.

(Laughter.)

JUDGE POLLARD: Well, the reason I mention that is because he authorized this particular thing, and it's going to --

MS. KIRBY: It's a coincidence.

COMMISSIONER MOSER: Going on the record with that it's a coincidence. And so there has to be a presidential declaration of disaster to be able to have these kinds of funds available. So it goes away just so happens to be when he leaves office.

COMMISSIONER MOSER: So we've talked about, you know one of the things we said sirens and we said we don't want sirens, too many many people said they did not want sirens when they had these -- when we had these gatherings. Code Red, and I don't know if Dub wants to chime in on this, but Code Red is the same that's going to get information to a lot of people; not to everybody, okay. One of the things that we'll do is identify a point of contact in all of the camps, we won't communicate with everybody in the camp, but we have a point of contact at the camp so that they can disseminate people within -- to people within the camp, like during the summer when kids are there, or to RV parks. Now, if the RV parks want to have a siren themself when something goes up that's up to them. That's not part of our thing. So getting the information to the public is the end item of this whole thing. The first thing is sense a flood, then communicate that information to the local authorities, to the right authorities, and then for them to have a system by with which to disseminate the information to the public.

SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: The only thing I have to remind people, unfortunately, I guess I'm one of the ones that – Harley maybe has been around here to see some very devastating floods and quite a bit of loss of life. No matter what we do it's going to be up to the public, okay. The notification is great. I think the -- just the markers, the posts at the crossing is one thing, but it actually oughta state that at that level that your car may wash off, get people's attention at that crossing. The only other thing is, and as Bob can attest to, most of the time it has been informal where we call people. Unfortunately, the time we had the most devastating one down on the east end of the County down at the camps, I was working that night, spent 72 hours pulling kids out of fences. But we call people, we called camps, they made the decision that they thought they could beat that ride, and then that no matter what we do and no matter what we install there's going to be loss of life. It's educating people.

COMMISSIONER REEVES: And I will say and, Sheriff, you can correct me if I'm off base on this, the camps have had a very good system of letting down river if there's a rise, they're phoning their competitors or colleagues down river and letting them know what happened. It's informal as you said, but it's been a very good system to let them know over time.

SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Right. The camps and they do, they notify each other, we notify them, they notify -- there's a lot of informal things that really do work real well. It's not totally those unless they try to get them out too quick in trying to beat it. Because this river can come up in a instant, we all know that with the drainage. But it will go down just as quick if they just hold tight with what they've got. But the whole key is just getting people that are traveling up here from somewhere --

COMMISSIONER REEVES: That's my concern is ones that don't live here.

COMMISSIONER MOSER: That's everybody's concern.

JUDGE POLLARD: So this is kind of an offer, or to see if it's accepted by and also agreed to by UGRA and the City.

COMMISSIONER MOSER: Correct.

JUDGE POLLARD: And if they don't then where are we with this?

COMMISSIONER MOSER: If they don't then we just forget the whole project.

JUDGE POLLARD: Just dead in the water.

COMMISSIONER MOSER: Dead in the water, right. It's dead in the water.

COMMISSIONER REEVES: Question --

COMMISSIONER MOSER: Or the pun for the Flood Warning System.

JUDGE POLLARD: Dead in the water.

After failing to secure a grant, they continued to kick the can down the road.

2021 rolls around and they have over 5 mil in ARPA funds in their bank and wind up with a grand total of over 10 mil.

Commissioners' Court Regular Session 10/25/21 discussion of communication systems

COMMISSIONER LETZ: Well, I think that's good. I just think that -- you know, I'd like to get an idea of what the Sheriff's radar systems are going to cost. I mean I just don't want to send -- go out and get public input on something and then us just not be able to follow up because we have a priority that's different and we have additional information.

JUDGE KELLY: Well, but let me just explain. What all of these are intentioned to do is to initiate the education system. We need to get the Court educated. We need to get the public educated. Everybody knows that we have over $5 million sitting in our bank account that the Federal Government sent us for these ARPA funds. And they're not really grants, they're funds.

…

MRS. LAVENDER: And as the Judge said, there's a huge category. There's a bunch of things that you can spend the money or -- or secure the money to spend. And when we use the term grant, grant is not really what this is. It's just funding that's been made available through this American Rescue Plan Act. It doesn't require a match. It doesn't require, you know, that kind of structure. But it does have strings attached. It's not free money.

…

COMMISSIONER LETZ: And that's my concern, Judge. My concern is that from my understanding what the -- well, I won't say LCRA because I know what their number is. The number from the Sheriff's Department, the number from internal communications, we're already over 5 million dollars, so I don't want to go out to the public requesting -- we have no money to do it.

COMMISSIONER BELEW: Well, at least we make the determination that that's the first --

COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right. But --

COMMISSIONER BELEW: Then it's done. But we haven't made that determination.

COMMISSIONER LETZ: That's why I think we need to get discuss that phase. We need to get those numbers -- I mean, my opinion is law enforcement and the internal communications are the number one and two. I'm not sure which order. Probably law enforcement first. And -- and I haven't heard the rest of the Court say what their top two priorities are but --

COMMISSIONER HARRIS: Well, that's mine. Because not only does it cover that, it -- the Sheriff's office, communications, getting it up to speed, and also the Volunteer Fire Departments and making sure that we can communicate with other counties. As we saw last winter, I mean, communications is one of our biggest weaknesses and there's the Sheriff up. I'm sure he'll back me up on that. Communications was a problem. Go ahead, Sheriff.

SHERIFF LEITHA: Yeah, I kind of agree with Jonathan, if you go that direction. Now, we had a meeting, did attend with LCRA, a very good meeting, just preliminary. Preliminary, I'm looking at $3 million for just me. That's just us and -- the Sheriff's Office. That's not including we have the constables, we have Animal Control, we have the fire department. There's a whole bunch of stuff that needs to be checked into. Are we going to provide radios or not. But I can tell you, I mean, it kind of shocked me. But that was three million right off the bat. And -- and that's not even going into all the other agencies. Are we going to supply those radios, they're very expensive, to all the fire departments or not. So this is something we really need to look into, if we want to go that direction with the new infrastructure. Also, visiting with the Chief on a daily basis, you know, that's kind of the direction they're going. I've requested to be on the same radio system they are. Only because the fire department dispatch is out of the County. But the radio system will be very expensive.

COMMISSIONER BELEW: And -- but if we upgrade, we will also be able to communicate with the surrounding counties.

SHERIFF LEITHA: Yes. We will be. And it's a very big project. You know, something that's going to take some time. Very costly. And there's a lot of questions, you know. We're opening a can of worms, you know. We discussed we really need the volunteer fire department input. We've already gotten some kickback --I mean some -- some -- you know, and that's why I didn't open this can of worms. It's going to be a long, drawn out process, you know, to do this. It can be done. But like I said, it's very costly. Something I can say like Don asked me, I mean, in the long run in the five year we can save money. We pay over $300,000 a year in tower leases. So there is going to be some savings down the line, just to let you know.

And they still don't update their flood warning system.

The people also didn't want to spend any of the ARPA money because it was tied to the Biden administration. Even the Judge suggests just holding on to the money so that it can’t be sent to states that don’t share their same values. And now we have 10s of people who have died and many might have lived if the county had updated their flood warning system and installed flood sirens along the river like the multiple counties/towns around them did.

Commissioners' Court Regular Session 11/08/21

Resident: Are you accountable to anyone for how you spend it? Or is it a, kind of, a reward and shows your support for this particular program? It's not free money. Being present as we talk. How do we know this? Immediately. Unless you want it on the COVID lies and vaccination pressure, you have to send it back. Those are heavy strings. And those are strings. The deep state harangue and vilified President Trump for calling COVID for what it was and then suggest responses that were non-draconian, and then when Biden took office, the leftist government took its gloves off. It has lied and lied more about this COVID -- about COVID.

The temptation is great, you're accountable, and we would like to know where your allegiance is.

Resident 2: And I'm here to ask this Court today to send this money back to the Biden administration, which I consider to be the most criminal treasonous communist government ever to hold the White House. And Kerr County should not be accepting anything from these people. They're currently facilitating an invasion of our border, and we're going to support these people? So that's what I have to say. Thank you.

Resident: I happen to know that there is no such thing as free money. It's never government-funded; it's tax-payer funded. So they're taking our money and they're putting strings attached to it and then they're giving it back to us. And they're going to get their foot in the door in this county. We don't want their money. I feel like the people have spoken and I stand with the people. Thank you for your time.

COMMISSIONER BELEW: We have money in the bank, $5.1 million, that was sent to Kerr County.

JUDGE KELLY: We didn't ask for it. They sent it.

COMMISSIONER BELEW: They sent it.

MS. DEWELL: Exactly.

COMMISSIONER BELEW: The money is in the bank right now. Hasn't been spent. In the event that you don't spend it, you send it back. That's part of the Treasury's rules on it. If you do spend it, whatever percentage, there would be no expense to the taxpayers in Kerr County. It would all come out of that account, no matter what you do with it.

JUDGE KELLY: And GrantWorks has been very helpful in -- in getting us focused on what colors between the lines and what doesn't. As of last Thursday, when I got a call from Bonnie White telling me about this -- the problem that y'all were going to present at the meeting, I went and got on the telephone to their Senior Vice President from GrantWorks. And there -- there are discussions that they want to have with us and so we want to sit down and listen to them. And we want -- we want you to hear them, too. Because you're the public. But we -- we need to know and get very comfortable with where we are with this grant before we start taking that money. And the claw back was the first thing. As far as where that money sits for the next year or two, my old law partner John Cornyn tells me that if we send it back it's going to New Jersey or it's going to New York or it's going to --

MRS. LAVENDER: Or California.

JUDGE KELLY: -- or California. And so I don't know if I'd rather be the custodian of the money until we decide what we have to do with it rather than giving it back to the government to spend it on values that we in Kerr County don't agree with. So --

COMMISSIONER BELEW: And any spending of it would have to be done in Commissioners' Court so you'll be able to see it and know it.

They eventually signed a 7.5 mil contract with Motorola in 2022 for a county emergency communications system. The system would provide 95% radio coverage to firefighters, EMS and law enforcement.

But hey at least the USGR has had developing a flood warning system on their Strategic Plan doc since 2022 which they kept rolling to the next year plan.

USGR Strategic Plan 2025

B-2. Work with local partners to develop Kerr County flood warning system

• In January 2017, UGRA partnered with Kerr County in a FEMA flood warning implementation grant request for $980,000. The project was not selected for funding and most of the funds went to communities impacted by Hurricane Harvey.

• In FY18 the USGS installed a high intensity precipitation gauge at the streamflow site on the Guadalupe in Hunt included in the agreement with UGRA.

• During the previous reporting period, a pre application for a county wide flood warning system was submitted to the Texas Water Development Board Flood Infrastructure Fund. The project was invited to submit a complete application, but UGRA declined due to the low (5%) match offered through the grant.

• UGRA participated in the update to the Kerr County Hazard Mitigation Action Plan which addresses hazards including flooding. The final plan was submitted to FEMA in April 2025.

• During this reporting period, UGRA requested bids for a flood warning dashboard that combines multiple sources of data into one tool. The project will also recommend future improvements to monitoring equipment related to flood warning. Information from this dashboard will be used by UGRA staff and local emergency coordinators and decision makers. A contractor for this project was selected in April 2025.