In Texas, top emergency management officials from Kerr County have testified publicly for the first time since devastating floods killed more than 130 people over the Fourth of July weekend. Two emergency management officials told state lawmakers they were asleep as the disaster unfolded. Judge Rob Kelly is the top-ranking official in Kerr County and directs emergency management.

Judge Rob Kelly: “My wife was at home during the early hours of July Fourth, while I was at our lake house preparing for a family gathering. On the afternoon and evening of July 3rd, nothing felt out of the ordinary in Kerr County.”

Survivors confronted Kerr County officials over their disaster response as floodwaters rose to historic levels. Here’s resident Lawrence Walker on the county’s lack of an alarm warning system.

Lawrence Walker: “So, the alarms work. Europeans have alarms. Canadians have alarms. Comfort, Texas, which is right over the county line, has alarms. We don’t have alarms. We had the chance to have alarms. The research had been done, and the money was offered. But I think the conservative aspect of our commissioners, they didn’t want that federal money, and they turned it away.”