Latest news with #JohnDavidTrolinger
Yahoo
20-07-2025
- Yahoo
‘Replace the people that failed us.' Former Kerr Co. IT official calls for change after flood alert delay
KERR COUNTY, Texas (KXAN) – The man who said he helped Kerr County implement an emergency alert system in his former role there as information technology director is now calling on top leaders to step down following a flash flood that killed more than 100 people. John David Trolinger said he held that post for 15 years and retired in 2019. In a phone interview this week with KXAN Investigators, he called delays in issuing notifications to cellphones in the area 'incompetence' and 'a leadership failure.' 'I don't see anything that the county needs to do differently other than get a new sheriff and a new emergency manager,' Trolinger said. 'I don't think there's any solution other than to replace the people that failed us.' Evidence collected by KXAN – including dispatch audio and FEMA data – shows county officials did not send alerts for hours after a National Weather Service warning, and more targeted alerts did not go out for days. 'I know that's going to be asked over and over,' Sheriff Larry Leitha said when questioned about the timeline of the alerts in a press conference following the July 4 flood. 'Please understand that… We're not going to hide from everything, that's going to be checked into at a later time.' On Thursday, a joint information center established by area agencies to coordinate responses to media inquiries related to the flood told KXAN a 'complete review of the incident' was 'well underway,' adding – at this stage – it 'would not be appropriate to comment on statements made by a former Kerr County employee.' 'I'm telling you, on this public information, you're going to be stonewalled,' Trolinger said. 'You will be made to feel guilty just for asking for the information.' Trolinger said he retired over disagreements with County Judge Rob Kelly. Questions for Kelly and other county officials have not been answered directly. Local officials have said they are suspending the legal timeline for responding to such requests 'due to the catastrophic flooding of the Guadalupe River.' Before directing KXAN to the information center himself, Emergency Management Coordinator W.B. 'Dub' Thomas replied, saying: 'We will not be responding to your email below or future messages.' Thomas, who has served in that role since 2015, is also at the center of Trolinger's frustration. 'It's [Thomas'] responsibility – the emergency manager – to get the messages from the state and from the weather service and prepare everyone – like the county judge and the dispatchers – to let them know that there's some event coming to watch out for.' Trolinger said Thomas should have made that decision the day before the flood – on July 3, following an NWS flood watch for Kerr County. 'And that's why I'm so mad,' he added. 'Send a CodeRED' The next morning – at 1:14 a.m. – the NWS issued a flash flood warning for a portion of the county. Hours later at 4:22 a.m. – still well before the river hits its height and any verified alerts issued by local officials went out – Kerr County dispatch audio obtained by KXAN from a credible source detailed an area volunteer firefighter requesting a CodeRED. 'Is there any way we can send a CodeRED out to our Hunt residents, asking them to find higher ground or stay home?' he asked. The dispatcher replied: 'We have to get that approved with our supervisor.' LISTEN: Ingram volunteer firefighter calls Kerr County dispatch during deadly July 4 flood, requesting CodeRED alert. CodeRED is a subscriber-based emergency alert system Trolinger helped establish in Kerr County during his tenure. Today, that system is connected to IPAWS – FEMA's Integrated Public Alert & Warning System – which allows the county to alert all phones in a geographical area, regardless of enrollment. But, Trolinger said, someone must still activate the notification manually. 'There's no automation at all,' he explained. 'We've got an emergency manager, and he is responsible for this to be on the lookout, to be ready and be able to warn people and prepare them for this exact scenario.' 'What the river can do' In a 2020 county commissioners meeting, Thomas spoke about connecting the already-established CodeRED process with IPAWS, detailing his knowledge of how it would work. 'If I use CodeRED, then I'll be able to – once I've taken the webinar for it – it'll show me how to access that – the IPAWS system via CodeRED,' Thomas said in archived video footage of the meeting. Trolinger said Thomas and other county officials understood the system and its purpose, having used it effectively in the years between that meeting and the deadly flood. 'It's my feeling that the institutional memory of what the river can do is what was actually lost, not the system,' he said, pointing to longtime residents' knowledge of historic flooding danger in the area – something Thomas even referenced in the 2020 video. 'We've been trying to get a new flood warning system here. We haven't been able to do it.' Thomas told Kelly and commissioners before they approved upgrading the county's alert system. 'This is just another method of being able to communicate emergencies or disastrous type information to the public when they're here.' Trolinger, Kelly and Leitha have not answered KXAN's specific questions. We have requested records of their communication during those crucial hours and will update our coverage once that becomes available. Beyond an explanation of what happened, Trolinger reiterated his hope for a change in county leadership. 'You need to have somebody… that understands what can happen and to educate the public so that they're well out of the riverbed before… the water's rushing down the river,' he said. KXAN Investigative Producer Dalton Huey and Investigative Photojournalist Chris Nelson contributed to this report. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
CBS News
09-07-2025
- CBS News
Texas flood alerts were delayed as officials waited for authorization, former Kerr County official says
Questions have emerged over whether there was sufficient warning ahead of flooding in Central Texas that has killed over 100 people, with many focusing on a lack of an alert system in hard-hit Kerry County. Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly, a top local government official, said in the wake of the flooding that the area does "not have a warning system." When pressed about emergency alerts at news conferences, several officials refused to answer directly and instead said they were focused on finding the victims. But John David Trolinger, Kerr County's former IT director, tells CBS News he helped install CodeRED — a third-party alert system that costs the county about $25,000 a year — sometime around 2009, and provided recordings in which first responders can be heard asking the system be activated in the early morning hours of July 4. When he woke up on Friday around 1 a.m., Tolinger said he immediately tuned into emergency radio transmissions. The nearby Guadalupe River was rising fast, and people were in danger, he said. By 3:26 a.m., firefighters warned the dispatcher that certain areas had become impassable. "That's an emergency," Trolinger told CBS News. The CodeRED system allows prerecorded voice messages and text messages to be sent to phones registered to receive the alerts. Trolinger recorded the moment volunteer firefighters requested a CodeRED alert be sent. It came as early as 4:22 a.m., but dispatchers delayed because they needed special authorization. "Is there any way we can send a code red out to our Hunt residents asking them to find higher ground or stay home?" one firefighter is heard saying in recordings Trolinger gave CBS News. "Stand by, we have to get that approved with our supervisor," the dispatcher responds. The river continued to rise, and Trolinger's recordings show emergency responders calling in various emergencies, such as cars and RVs with people still inside being swept away. By 5:11 a.m., as first responders were carrying out rescue operations in the flood waters, the CodeRED alert still hadn't been sent. "I didn't know who was in dispatch," Trolinger said, recalling the morning of July Fourth. "It's been an hour. Someone should have been standing — someone should have gotten up and been there to say, 'OK, send the code red.'" Trolinger has been retired for six years, and told CBS News he doesn't know who is responsible for approving the emergency alerts anymore. But when he was working, he said it was the sheriff's responsibility. The sheriff's office did not respond to CBS News' request for comment. Trolinger told CBS News he even tried calling the dispatchers himself, but said the phone lines were jammed and he figured it might make things worse. "I thought, 'Man, someone could die because I'm there arguing with a dispatcher that doesn't know who I am or remember my name,'" he said. "And there was no way I was gonna interrupt their process because it's, you know, it's five o'clock, someone's gotta be in dispatch besides just the night, the overnight people." Although there were no alerts sent by local government officials in Kerr County or neighboring Bandera County, CBS News analysis shows there were 22 warnings sent by the National Weather Service for Kerr County and the Kerrville area. Among those was a 4:03 a.m. alert sent to Bandera and Kerr counties that said, in part, "This is a PARTICULARLY DANGEROUS SITUATION. SEEK HIGHER GROUND NOW!" and "Move to higher ground now! This is an extremely dangerous and life-threatening situation. Do not attempt to travel unless you are fleeing an area subject to flooding or under an evacuation order." But many people in the area say they never received any warnings. Among them, the Roberson family, who told CBS News they're lucky to be alive after flood waters forced them out of their home in the middle of the night. The family became separated, and Phil Roberson said he rode out the storm on the roof of their house. "It's just cars floating at the house, and there's cars bouncing off the house, and I had no idea where they were," he said. Jack Roberson, 15, and his mother, Lindsay Roberson, tried to drive away, but the water rose too fast, and he was forced to grab onto a tree to keep from being swept away. An 18-minute recording shows Jack Roberson's legs underwater as trees and other debris engulfed him. But the family said they don't plan on moving. "We probably will run a few drills and talk about where we're going. Getting separated was awful." Phil Roberson said.
