KERRVILLE, Texas (AP) — Over the last decade, an array of Texas state and local agencies missed opportunities to fund a flood warning system intended to avert a disaster like the one that killed dozens of young campers and scores of others in Kerr County on the Fourth of July.

New human settlements constructed in recent years have made the waterway more hazardous, UT-Arlington civil engineering professor says.

Despite officials urging civilians to stay away, volunteers have joined the search for missing people and the cleanup on the Guadalupe River.

Before hundreds of first responders and volunteers from around the country came to help, it was the local residents of Texas Hill Country who faced down a deadly wall of water along the Gaudalope River and witnessed terrifying scenes.

Hill Country residents and volunteers on Tuesday continued picking up the pieces that the deadly waterway left behind days earlier.

Without a modern flood warning system, emergency officials monitor four sensors along the Guadalupe River – including one that was knocked out in the flood.

Devastating floodwaters have swept through Central Texas, particularly impacting Kerrville and the Guadalupe River shoreline, causing significant damage and leaving residents mourning.