Texas sheriff who predicted deadly floods shares how more than 100 lost lives could have been saved

KERR COUNTY, TEXAS: As floodwaters finally started to recede across Texas, federal, state, and local officials showed up to take stock of the devastation and to join the community in prayer.

There was a unified front in praising the rescue teams and the neighborly spirit of Texans pulling together. The rescue workers did a phenomenal job, officials said, adding that people were working hand in hand to help their fellow Texans.

“Nobody saw this coming,” declared Rob Kelly, the head of Kerr County’s local government, describing the disaster as something no one could have predicted.

But maybe someone did.

Former Sheriff Rusty Hierholzer sounded the alarm

After 40 years in the Kerr County sheriff’s office and two decades as sheriff before retiring in 2020, Rusty Hierholzer did try to sound the alarm.

“Unfortunately, people don't realize that we are in flash flood alley,” he told the Daily Mail.

Hierholzer had been pushing for a tsunami-style alarm system for years, especially since 2016. He and a few county commissioners were vocal about installing early-warning sirens to alert folks when the Guadalupe River — which runs all the way from Kerr County to the Gulf Coast — began to swell. But no one listened.

Neighboring counties like Kendall and Comal installed their sirens, but not Kerr. In fact, FEMA reportedly turned down grant applications for such systems three times — in 2016, 2020, and again in 2023. Each siren would’ve cost between $10,000 and $50,000.

“It was probably just, I hate to say the word, priorities,” admitted Tom Moser, a former county commissioner, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. “Trying not to raise taxes. We just didn't implement a sophisticated system that gave an early warning system. That's what was needed and is needed.”

Even Kelly, the current county judge, acknowledged to the New York Times, “We've looked into it before. The public reeled at the cost. Taxpayers won't pay for it.” Asked if that might change now, he said, “I don't know.”

Familiar nightmare comes back to haunt Kerr County

Rusty’s connection to Kerr County runs deep. He moved there as a teen in 1975, graduated high school, volunteered as a horse wrangler at Heart O’ the Hills summer camp, and then joined the sheriff’s office. The floods aren’t just numbers on a chart for him — they’re ghosts.

Back in 1987, when flash floods killed 10 teenagers at the Pot O’ Gold Christian Camp in nearby Comfort, he was the sheriff. He still remembers it like it was yesterday, having “spent hours in helicopters pulling kids out of trees here [in] our summer camps,” he said. That trauma never really left him.

And now, history tragically repeated itself.

This Friday, one of those lost in the flooding was his close friend Jane Ragsdale, the director and co-owner of Heart O’ the Hills. She died along with at least 27 other children at Camp Mystic, not far away. Hierholzer said he lost “several friends” in this latest flood.

Would newer alert systems prevented Texas flood tragedy?

Hierholzer is not sure that sirens could have saved them. He says he’s not here to throw blame while rescue efforts are still underway.

“This is not the time to critique or come down on all the first responders,” he said. “After all this is over, they will have an 'after the incident accident request' and look at all this stuff. That's what we've always done, every time there was a fire or floods or whatever. We'd look and see what we could do better.”

He’s also honest about the limits of even the best alert systems. “If we’d had alarms, sometimes there is no way you can evacuate people out of the zone,” he admitted.

"How are you going to get all of them out safely? That was always a big concern for us: Are you making people safer by telling them to stay or go? And what happened in the floods of '87 was that the workers at the church camp tried to get the kids out of the area, but their bus broke down, and they were swept away," he explained.

The technology is outdated, and even Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem acknowledged that during a Saturday news conference. When asked about the delay in phone warnings — many didn’t receive alerts until 7 am Friday, two hours after the water had peaked — Noem didn’t sugarcoat it.

She called the system “ancient” and said the Trump administration was working to fix it.

“We know that everyone wants more warning time, and that's why we're working to upgrade the technology that's been neglected for far too long to make sure families have as much advance notice as possible,” she said.

Not the time for finger-pointing after Texas flood tragedy

For now, Hierholzer is stepping back and offering quiet support. He reached out to his successor, current sheriff Larry Leither, but doesn’t want to get in the way.

“The main thing they need now is for people to stay away,” he stressed. “First responders can't get to the area if there are sightseers wanting to see all the stuff. That's always a problem: please stay away and let them do their jobs.”

He knows the pressure Leither is under all too well.

He has "his hands full right now,” Rusty said, thinking back to the scenes that haunted him for decades. “He's seeing things he shouldn't have to.”

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