Texas sheriff's admission about response to floods
A Texas sheriff has revealed that the county official responsible for coordinating emergency response during the deadly July 4 floods was likely asleep at home as the disaster unfolded.
Sheriff Larry Leitha told CNN that Kerr County Emergency Management Coordinator W.B. 'Dub' Thomas was 'at home asleep at that time,' citing that Thomas had worked the evening before the floods that killed at least 136 people.
Among the victims were 27 children and staff at Camp Mystic, who were sleeping when the flash floods swept through in the early morning hours. The National Weather Service issued its first flash flood warning at 1:14am CT, more than three hours before the Guadalupe River surged over 30 feet, inundating the camp and nearby RV parks.
Leitha told CNN that officials are going to take a 'hard look' at how the response was carried out and review Thomas' job performance leading up to and during the tragedy.
AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Jonathan Porter told DailyMail.com earlier this month that he and his team issued an alert of life-threatening floods 30 minutes before the NWS, adding more to for response and evacuations.
Although Porter admitted that the late-night timing of the storm likely played a role in the inaction on the ground, there was still three hours before rising flood waters from the overflowing Guadalupe River peaked in Hunt, around 4:30am.
'You can't go to sleep and be responsible for the safety of large numbers of people,' Porter told DailyMail.com days after the flood hit.. 'That's going to be the question in terms of, 'Was somebody constantly monitoring that?' They've got to have somebody monitoring for severe weather warnings 24/7.'
Now it seems Leitha has answered Porter's question by naming Thomas as who was tasked with managing weather alerts, but was likely not awake to receive them. Leitha also admitted that the county's emergency operations center was not active during the most critical window, between 1am and 3am, when floodwaters reached their peak. 'We're in a rural area; we don't have a 24-hour service, or anything open like that,' the sheriff added.
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