By CLAUDIA LAUER

As the Guadalupe River swelled from a wall of water heading downstream, sirens blared over the tiny river community of Comfort — a last-ditch warning to get out for those who had missed cellphone alerts and firefighters going street-to-street telling people to get out.

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Daniel Morales, assistant chief of the Comfort Volunteer Fire Department, believes that long, flat tone the morning of July Fourth saved lives.

The sirens are a testament to the determination of a community that has experienced deadly floods in the past, warning residents of devastating floodwaters that hours earlier had killed at least 118 people in communities along the same river, including 27 campers and counselors in neighboring Kerr County. That county did not have a warning system like the one in Comfort.

Everyone in Comfort, a more than 2,200-person unincorporated community in Kendall County, survived the flooding with many people along the river evacuating in time, Morales said.

Comfort residents were driven by history

Morales has been with the department for decades. He was there when flooding in 1978 killed 33 people, 15 of them in Comfort, including his grandfather. So when an opportunity arose last year to expand the community’s emergency warning system, he and other residents buckled down to find the funding.

The fire department’s siren needed an upgrade. While the firehouse got a new siren, Morales found a Missouri company that was willing to refurbish the old one at a low cost so it could be moved to a central location in Comfort Park where it was connected to a U.S. Geological Survey sensor at Cypress Creek. When the water level reaches a certain point, the sensor triggers the siren, but it can also be sounded manually.

“We do for ourselves and for the community,” Morales said. “If we hadn’t had a drought the past months and the (Cypress) Creek hadn’t been down, we could have had another (19)78. The past few days, I’ll tell you, it brings back a lot.”

Overcoming the cost hurdle for sirens

Morales said they cobbled together money from a grant, from the county commission, the department’s own budget and from the local electric utility, which also donated a siren pole. They also got help installing the flood sensor gauge in the creek.

The price tag with all the donated materials and the costs the department fronted was somewhere around $50,000 to $60,000 or “maybe a little more,” Morales said.

In Kerr County, the price tag for a proposed flood warning system for a larger swath of the Guadalupe River was close to $1 million, which caused several county and city officials to balk when attempts at grants and other funding opportunities fell through. They ultimately didn’t install the warning systems near the camps where dozens of young campers died in the recent flooding.

In Comal County, Texas, about 90 miles east of Kerr County, the Guadalupe River meanders into Canyon Lake before picking back up on its journey to empty into the San Antonio Bay on the Gulf Coast. The county along with Guadalupe County, New Braunfels city government and the Water-Oriented Recreation District- a state-created entity- agreed to fund expanded flood sirens along the Guadalupe River. The project was completed in 2015 and Comal County now manages the system including the information from the river gauges and notifications about the river height. A message left for Comal County officials seeking details about the cost of the system was not returned Thursday.

Training residents was key to success

After the updated Comfort sirens were installed, the volunteer fire department spent months getting the community used to the siren tests that sound daily at noon, putting out messaging that if they hear a siren any other time of day, they should check local TV stations, the department’s Facebook page and elsewhere for emergency notifications.

The sirens make a specific sound for tornadoes and a long, flat tone for floods.

So on July Fourth, if people in Comfort hadn’t seen the weather alerts sent to phones or announced on radios, if they hadn’t heard shouting firefighters going from street to street to evacuate, they heard the long tone and knew they had to leave their homes. A Facebook post on the department’s page noted a mandatory evacuation of all residents along the Guadalupe River.

But Comfort was also miles away from the flash flooding that overtook the camps and didn’t experience the cresting of the river flooding until after the terrifying rush of water in the pitch black early morning hours hit cabins. Many Comfort residents were already awake and aware of the rising water by the time the sirens sounded. The Guadalupe’s crest was among the highest ever recorded at Comfort, rising from hip-height to three stories tall in over just two hours.

Morales doesn’t know if sirens would have changed things in Kerr County. But he knows they gave Comfort residents an extra level of warning. In recent days, Morales said he has been contacted by some of the funders to talk about adding a third siren in town.

“Anything we can do to add to the safety, we’re going to sit down and try to make it work,” he said. “The way things are happening, it might be time to enhance the system even further.”

This story has been updated to correct the name of a county to Kerr County, instead of Kerry County, in the 10th paragraph.

Lauer reported from Philadelphia.

By MICHAEL PHILLIS

Over just two hours, the Guadalupe River at Comfort, Texas, rose from hip-height to three stories tall, sending water weighing as much as the Empire State building downstream roughly every minute it remained at its crest.

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The force of floodwater is often more powerful and surprising than people imagine.

Comfort offers a good lens to consider the terrible force of a flash flood’s wall of water because it’s downstream of where the river’s rain-engorged branches met. The crest was among the highest ever recorded at the spot — flash flooding that appears so fast it can “warp our brains,” said James Doss-Gollin, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at Rice University.

The Texas flood smashed through buildings, carried away cars and ripped sturdy trees out by the roots, dropping the debris in twisted piles when the water finally ebbed. It killed more than 100 people, prompted scores of rescues and left dozens of others missing. The deaths were concentrated upriver in Kerr County, an area that includes Camp Mystic, the devastated girls’ camp, where the water hit early and with little notice.

A helicopter flies over the Guadalupe River after a flash flood swept through the area, Friday, July 4, 2025, in Kerrville, Texas. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

Water is capable of such destruction because it is heavy and can move fast. Just one cubic foot of water — imagine a box a bit larger than the size of a basketball — weighs about 62 pounds. When the river rose to its peak at Comfort, 177,000 cubic feet — or 11 million pounds of water — flowed by every second.

“When you have that little lead time … that means you can’t wait until the water level starts to rise,” Doss-Gollin said. “You need to take proactive measures to get people to safety.”

Water as heavy as a jumbo jet

A small amount of water — less than many might think — can sweep away people, cars and homes. Six inches is enough to knock people off their feet. A couple of feet of fast-moving water can take away an SUV or truck, and even less can move cars.

“Suppose you are in a normal car, a normal sedan, and a semitrailer comes and pushes you at the back of the car. That’s the kind of force you’re talking about,” said Venkataraman Lakshmi, a University of Virginia professor and president of the hydrology section of the American Geophysical Union.

This aerial photo shows damage from flash floods along the Guadalupe River in Ingram, Texas, Thursday, July 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

And at Comfort, it took just over 15 minutes for so much water to arrive that not only could it float away a large pickup truck, but structures were in danger — water as heavy as a jumbo jet moved by every second.

At that point, “We are past vehicles, homes and things can start being affected,” said Daniel Henz, flood warning program manager at the flood control district of Maricopa County, Arizona, an area that gets dangerous scary flash floods.

The water not only pushes objects but floats them, and that can actually be scarier. The feeling of being pushed is felt immediately, letting a person know they are in danger. Upward force may not be felt until it is overwhelming, according to Upmanu Lall, a water expert at Arizona State University and Columbia University.

“The buoyancy happens — it’s like a yes, no situation. If the water reaches a certain depth and it has some velocity, you’re going to get knocked off (your feet) and floating simultaneously,” he said.

The mechanics of a flash flood

The landscape created the conditions for what some witnesses described as a fast-moving wall of water.

Lots of limestone covered by a thin layer of soil in hilly country meant that when rain fell, it ran quickly downhill with little of it absorbed by the ground, according to S. Jeffress Williams, senior scientist emeritus with the U.S. Geological Survey.

A flood gauge marks the height of water flowing over a farm-to-market road near Kerrville, Texas, on Friday, July 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

A flash flood generally starts with an initial lead wave and then builds as rain rushes over the landscape and into the river basin. It may rise quickly, but the water still takes some time to converge.

The water crumpled cars into piles, twisted steel and knocked trees down as if they were strands of grass. Images captured the chaos and randomness of the water’s violence.

And then, not as fast as it rose, but still quickly, the river receded.

Five hours after its crest at Comfort, it had already dropped 10 feet, revealing its damage in retreat. A couple of days after it started to rise, a person could stand with their head above the river again.

“Everything just can happen, very, very quickly,” Henz said.

Associated Press writer Seth Borenstein in Washington contributed.

The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

The Arlington Avenue intersection at Rice Street will be closed for utility work until July 21, according to Ramsey County officials. This is part of the Rice Street reconstruction project.

However, businesses can be accessed from Park Street, Albemarle Street, and Cottage Avenue.

For more information go to ramseycounty.us/residents/roads-transportation.

As part of the Rice Street project, work continues from Maryland Avenue to the north side of the bridge at Cottage Avenue, and from Arlington Avenue to Wheelock Parkway. Wheelock Parkway is open to traffic traveling east and west, with no turning on Rice Street.

County Road J, I-35E

Meanwhile, work is scheduled to begin the end of July at the Ramsey County Road J and Interstate 35E exchange. The intersection of Centerville Road and County Road J will be fully closed for construction of a roundabout.

Businesses in the area — a gas station, restaurants and shops — can be accessed from the entrance to the south of the intersection and on Ramsey County Road J between Centerville Road and the highway overpasses. Ramps on I-35E will be open.

For more detour information go to ramseycounty.us/residents/roads-transportation.

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After last month’s shootings of two state lawmakers and their spouses, Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher is pressing public safety officials for answers on how they handled notifying legislators and law enforcement agencies of the ongoing threat.

In a letter to security officials at the Minnesota Capitol, Fletcher raised concerns about information sharing between law enforcement and state leaders as a man suspected of shooting lawmakers while disguised as a police officer remained at large in the early morning hours of June 14.

Fletcher said the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office did not learn of the shootings, details about the suspect, or the fact that the suspect had been targeting lawmakers until hours after the information had become available to other officials and law enforcement agencies.

Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher. (Ellie Roth / Pioneer Press)

“Few things are more troubling than not being informed for several hours that a murderer is roaming the northern suburbs with a “hit list” in search of his potential victims, many of whom reside in your patrol jurisdiction,” the sheriff wrote in a July 7 letter addressed to the Minnesota House Sergeant at Arms and Minnesota Capitol Security, a branch of the State Patrol.

The Minnesota Department of Public Safety disputes Fletcher’s claims.

“This letter does not accurately represent the manner in which law enforcement responded to the tragic events on June 14,” Department of Public Safety Commissioner Bob Jacobson said in a statement this week. “Notifications were sent to the proper parties early that morning. We’ll be discussing that in greater detail with the sheriff and the others as the investigation continues.”

Vance Boelter, 57, faces federal and state prosecution for the fatal shootings of former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark at their home in Brooklyn Park, and shooting state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, at their home in Champlin. Authorities captured him near his home outside Green Isle, Minn., after a two-day manhunt.

Boelter allegedly had a list of addresses for Democratic elected officials and abortion providers in his vehicle, and visited the homes of Sen. Ann Rest, DFL-New Hope, and Rep. Kristin Bahner, DFL-Maple Grove. Bahner was not home at the time, and Boelter allegedly left Rest’s street after a police officer arrived.

Local police

Vance Boelter, the man suspected of shooting two Minnesota lawmakers and their spouses, is taken into custody Sunday, June 15, 2025. (Courtesy of the Ramsey County sheriff’s office)

Local police became aware of the shootings just after 2 a.m., when Hoffman’s daughter called 911, and started responding to north Hennepin County legislators’ homes. Though a widespread alert did not happen until after 3:30 a.m., when officers encountered the shooter at the Hortmans’ Brooklyn Park home.

The Department of Public Safety said teletype notifications —  digital inter-agency notices — went out to metro-area law enforcement agencies: one from the Brooklyn Park Police Department at 4:25 a.m. and another from the State Patrol at 4:45 a.m.

Those notifications mentioned that the suspected shooter appeared to be impersonating a police officer and urged agencies to monitor elected officials’ residences.

Asked about the teletype notifications, Fletcher said they lacked complete information and should have included lawmakers’ addresses so law enforcement could know where to go.

He also said the notifications included a description of the suspects’ vehicle, even though the suspect had abandoned the vehicle at the Hortmans’ Brooklyn Park house after encountering police.

Calling for review

Fletcher is calling for a review of the events of June 14, possibly through a legislative audit, to answer questions about which agency should be responsible for notifying lawmakers and law enforcement of potential threats.

The biggest concern, he said, is that it’s unclear who exactly should be notifying lawmakers and state law enforcement of potential threats.

While there were various messages sent by the sergeant at arms, legislative staff, and law enforcement agencies, the level of information available in different communications was at times patchy and delayed, he said.

“I was never suggesting at the time that I wrote the letter that we need to blame someone,” Fletcher said in an interview. “In fact, my letter says we need to figure out who’s even responsible.”

A group of 150 sheriffs and police chiefs received a briefing from the Department of Public Safety on this week, Fletcher said, adding that the agency plans a review of what happened the morning of June 14.

The House sergeant at arms falls under the authority of House leadership. House Speaker Lisa Demuth, R-Cold Spring, said there will be a review of the response to the shootings.

“I am grateful for the prompt and heroic efforts by law enforcement on the day of this horrific attack,” she said in a statement. “As with every major public safety incident, there will be top-to-bottom reviews of the response as well as significant work to examine improvements to safety and security measures.”

Security at Capitol

Fletcher’s letter to Capitol security and the House sergeant at arms comes as he continues to press state leaders to boost security at the state Capitol.

In a July 1 letter, Fletcher asked members of the Advisory Committee on Capitol Security, a bipartisan panel chaired by Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, to consider electronic screening of visitors.

Measures should include metal detectors or X-ray machines to screen for weapons, the sheriff wrote, telling the committee that his office would be ready to assist with any efforts.

The advisory committee so far hasn’t weighed in publicly on any specific changes at the Capitol. In June, members issued a statement saying they were committed to boosting security but stopped short of endorsing any specific measures.

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