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.
Researchers who have studied the cell phone warning system told NBC 5 Investigates that policies on how and when to issue critical alerts vary widely from one county to another, potentially risking delays when seconds count.
As the search for the missing continues in Kerr County, records reviewed by NBC 5 Investigates raise new questions about whether local officials could have used the nation’s wireless emergency alert system to better warn people in the flood’s path.
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Along with our partners at NBC News, we scoured a FEMA archive of cell phone alerts sent through FEMA’s integrated public alert and warning system, or IPAWS.
IPAWS is a system that many local counties, including Kerr County, are authorized to use to issue warnings to all cell phones in a designated area. It’s the same system used to send Amber Alerts.
The FEMA message archive shows that as the water began rising in Kerr County on July 4, the National Weather Service sent an IPAWS flood warning to cell phones as early as 1:14 a.m.
However, weather service forecasters cannot issue instructions on whether to evacuate or wait for rescue; those messages are up to county or city officials.
The FEMA archive showed that Kerr County did not send any wireless alerts through IPAWS on July 4, when the flooding began.
Some families said they did receive a CodeRed alert from Kerr County, which is similar to an IPAWS message. But CodeRed only reaches people who signed up for alerts.
“Most of the people I’ve talked to didn’t even know what CodeRed was,” said Kerr County resident Louis Kocurek.
Louis and Leslie Kocurek shared a screenshot of a Kerr County dispatch CodeRed message they received, saying major flooding continues. However, the Kocureks said that the message didn’t reach their phones until after 10 a.m.
By then, one flood gauge in Kerr County showed the river had already risen about 30 feet, and the Kocureks had taken a photo showing that roads in their neighborhood were already cut off.
“I’m mad because, you know, like I told another lady, how many lives do we have to lose in order for them to fix the system? It’s broken,” said Leslie Kocurek.
Kerr County has used the wider-reaching IPAWS system to warn of flooding in the past. Last year, on July 23, the archive showed the county sent an IPAWS alert saying the Guadalupe River was “expected to rise an additional 4 feet,” telling people to “avoid the river” and “move assets to higher ground immediately.”
So why no county IPAWS alert before the flood this time?
NBC 5 Investigates reached out to Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly and emergency management coordinator William Thomas, but they did not immediately respond to questions.
At a news conference last week, Kelly was asked why children’s camps along the river were not evacuated.
“I can’t answer that, I don’t know,” said Kelly, adding that they never expected water would rise so fast.
“We didn’t know this flood was coming. Rest assured, no one knew this kind of flood was coming,” Kelly said.
Researchers who have studied the IPAWS system told NBC 5 Investigates that communities across the country sometimes struggle to decide when to issue cell phone alerts, who should issue those alerts, and what the messages should say. The struggle stems, they said, in part from a lack of standardized nationwide policies.
“There is no required training. There’s no certification process currently within IPAWS,” said Jeannette Sutton, an emergency alert researcher who explained it’s up to each local government to write its own policies. That methodology, she said, has created differences in how effectively the system is used in each community.
“We need a lot of training, and we need the resources to help people to get trained,” said Sutton.
Sutton’s team at the University at Albany recently helped FEMA develop a tool for local emergency managers to use to pre-plan more effective messages before disaster strikes.
“They are generally facing a blank text box that says, ‘insert message here.’ And you can imagine that in a situation where there’s a lot of stress and uncertainty, that writing a message from scratch is very difficult,” said Sutton.
In a statement to NBC 5, FEMA said its IPAWS office “..encourages and supports practicing and exercising..” and said the agency makes training tools available “…enabling public safety officials to gain confidence using IPAWS.”
“It is really important to get it right when people’s lives are on the line,” said Sutton.
Sutton said cell phone alerts can be critical, especially in places like Kerr County, which doesn’t have a siren warning system.
But she said counties should also amplify alerts using tools like social media or even knocking on doors, as cell phone service is sometimes spotty in rural areas.
On the morning of the July 4 floods, the Kerr County Sheriff’s Department did use its Facebook account, posting messages around 5:30 a.m. warning of “dangerous flooding” and urging people to “move to higher ground.” Those messages could have reached social media users who happened to be awake and looking at Facebook, but they would not sound an alert on a phone like an IPAWS message.
At a news conference Wednesday, the sheriff said the county would look into whether evacuation orders should have been issued.
“Sometimes, evacuation is not the safest. Sometimes it’s better to shelter in place,” said Sheriff Larry Leitha.
The sheriff also pledged to examine why cell phone alerts did not happen sooner.
“Those are important questions. Those are, we will answer those questions,” said Leitha.
Questions with answers that might help other communities face the next disaster.
