Nearly a week after floodwaters swept away more than a hundred lives, Texas officials are facing heated questions over how much was – or was not – done in the early morning hours of Friday as a wall of water raced down the Guadalupe River.

At least 120 people have died and some 173 people remain unaccounted for statewide, nearly a week after flash floods ravaged the Texas Hill Country.

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

Over the last decade, an array of local and state agencies have missed opportunities to fund a flood warning system intended to avert the type of disaster that swept away dozens of youth campers and others in Kerr County,

Flash floods surged through in the middle of the night, but many local officials appeared unaware of the unfolding catastrophe, initially leaving people near the river on their own.

Aidan Heartfield was on the phone with his dad when their family’s cabin was swept away in the Texas floods. A team is searching for any signs of Heartfield.

A Kerrville-area river authority executed a contract for a flood warning system that would have been used to help with emergency response, local officials said.

Along the Guadalupe River, a 60-room inn and nearby homes were quickly filling with water. Confusion, desperation and heroism ensued.