Plans to develop a flood monitoring system in the Texas county hit hardest by deadly floods were scheduled to begin only a few weeks later.

People awoke from water rushing around them during the early morning hours of July 4, all along the Guadalupe River in the Texas Hill Country. Residents were seemingly caught off guard, but warnings had been issued days and hours before floodwaters began carrying away homes,

Also: San Antonio mourned the victims in a Travis Park vigil; UTSA said one of its teachers died in the Guadalupe River flood; Kerrville officials said a privately owned drone collided with a helicopter conducting search and rescue operations.

The storied Guadalupe River meanders through this Texas Hill Country town and into the unincorporated parts of Kerr County like a vein.

Volunteers and professionals from around the country and Mexico are still searching the challenging terrain for victims of the Texas flood.

With more than 170 still missing, communities must reconcile how to pick up the pieces around a waterway that remains both a wellspring and a looming menace.

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.

FOX 4’s Steven Dial rode along the Guadalupe River with the sheriff of Andrews County, located in West Texas, to get his first-hand account of the recovery effort.