Most summers, Kerrville, Texas, draws crowds for its July 4 celebration. This year, the streets are filled with emergency responders.

Days after devastating floods swept through the Texas Hill Country, the community of Kerrville is still grappling with the damage, loss, and a growing demand for answers.Standing well off the banks of the Guadalupe River,

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.

It could take months for Texas families to experience some form of closure as more than 170 people remain missing nearly one week after deadly July Fourth flooding along the Guadalupe River devastated the sprawling Hill Country.

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.

The governor said Tuesday that the state had “assets, resources and personnel” in place before the July 4 floods. On Wednesday evening, the death toll rose to 120.

Public officials in the area have come under repeated criticism amid questions about the timeline of what happened and why widespread warnings were

FEMA and the U.S. Small Business Administration, in coordination with the Texas Division of Emergency Management, are opening a Disaster Recovery Center in Kerrville on Thursday, July 10, to help homeowners, renters and business owners impacted by the flooding.

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

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.

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

Hill Country residents and volunteers on Tuesday continued picking up the pieces that the deadly waterway left behind days earlier.