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.

Days after flash floods killed over 100 people during the July Fourth weekend, search-and-rescue teams are using heavy equipment to untangle and peel away layers of trees, unearth large rocks in riverbanks and move massive piles of debris that stretch for miles in the search for the missing people.

Texas officials are being questioned about warning systems ahead of the deadly floods. As NBC News' Priscilla Thompson reports, Kerr County doesn't have a county-wide siren warning system in place.

Over 35,000 signed a petition urging Kerr County to install flood warning sirens after flash flooding killed at least 100 people on July 4.

"I hope that everyone knows, prayers work and God is still out there," Kerrville resident Donna Ragsdale said.

John David Trolinger was in his home’s radio room listening intently early Friday morning as the first water rescues took place on a rising Guadalupe River.

FEMA records show Kerr County officials did not use FEMA’s system to send warnings to phones in the critical hours as the flooding began on July 4.

Federal forecasters issued their first flood warning at 1:14 a.m. on July 4. Local officials haven’t shed light on when they saw the warnings or whether they saw them in time to take action.

Plans to develop a flood monitoring system in the Texas county hit hardest by deadly floods were scheduled to begin only a few weeks later.