As the Guadalupe River swelled from a wall of water heading downstream, sirens blared over the tiny river community of Comfort — a last-ditch warning to get out for those who had missed cellphone alerts and firefighters going street-to-street telling people to get out.

More than 100 people have died and dozens of others are missing following devastating central Texas floods that tore through local communities along the Guadalupe River early Friday. Fast-moving waters rose some 26 feet in under an hour overnight,