Kerr County first tried to secure $1 million for a flood warning system in 2017, but could not. Could such a system have prevented loss of life on July 4?

FEMA records obtained by NBC 5 Investigates show that Kerr County officials did not use FEMA’s Integrated Public Alert & Warning System to send warnings with safety instructions to all mobile phones in the affected area during critical hours as the flooding began on July 4.

In the last nine years, federal funding for a system has been denied to the county as it contends with a tax base hostile to government overspending.