Finally!

It took 27 days for Kerr County residents to learn what their Emergency Management Coordinator did the morning of deadly Guadalupe River flash flooding.  William "Dub" Thomas had been sick and was asleep in bed.

The 30 foot rise occurred while Thomas was asleep.

Thomas also informed state officials that he helped set up the IPAWS system for Kerr County, the warning system that went unused by County officials as they had no Emergency Operations Center set up when the flooding occurred.  He also revealed he is the Emergency Management Coordinator for the City of Ingram.  Ingram city leaders have shared concerns about Thomas' absence both during the event and afterwards.

Finally, the public knows some things about that evening.  Unanswered questions include:  What attempts were made to contact Thomas prior to the successful 5:30 am phone call?  Who was backing up Thomas from an emergency management perspective while he was ill?  

Local leaders were absent.  That includes the County Judge, Sheriff and Emergency Management Coordinator.  That absence cost lives.

Update:  Rep. Drew Darby stated "We have a lot of folks who have titles, but when the time came to act, they did not do so in a timely fashion."  He added that the state pre-positioned assets for potential flooding so the idea that this came out of the blue and was totally unexpected did not wash with him.

Fortune titled their article:

Kerr County officials reveal they were asleep, out of town during night of catastrophic flood

Update 8-3-25:   A timeline shows the hours of crisis while Kerr County officials were unavailable.

Update 8-4-25:  Another timeline shows how leaders failed their people.

Update 8-10-25:  WaPo did a piece on local leadership failures early morning July 4th.

Update 8-11-25:  KSAT received 911 calls relative to Kerr County flooding that rolled over to nearby counties.  Kerr County is yet to release that information to the public.