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

Animal rescue groups have found hundreds of pets in areas ravaged by flooding near the banks of the Guadalupe River last week. Animal shelters have filled with dogs and cats waiting to be reunited with their owners.

KERRVILLE, Texas (AP) — Over the last decade, an array of Texas state and local agencies missed opportunities to fund a flood warning system intended to avert a disaster like the one that killed dozens of young campers and scores of others in Kerr County on the Fourth of July.

Before hundreds of first responders and volunteers from around the country came to help, it was the local residents of Texas Hill Country who faced down a deadly wall of water along the Gaudalope River and witnessed terrifying scenes.

A Sulphur Springs couple camping on the banks of the Guadalupe River are among the victims of the Hill Country floods that claimed over 100 lives on the Fourth of July.

New human settlements constructed in recent years have made the waterway more hazardous, UT-Arlington civil engineering professor says.

Also: San Antonio mourned the victims in a Travis Park vigil; UTSA said one of its teachers died in the Guadalupe River flood; Kerrville officials said a privately owned drone collided with a helicopter conducting search and rescue operations.

Despite officials urging civilians to stay away, volunteers have joined the search for missing people and the cleanup on the Guadalupe River.

Many Catholics in the region have been stepping up to help, converging on Notre Dame Parish in Kerrville, located in the hardest-hit community along the Guadalupe River.