Kerr County couldn’t get funding for a flood warning system in 2016. Now a new team, led by a former commissioner, is making it happen.
KERR COUNTY, Texas — Former Commissioner Tom Moser told Kerr County officials, back in 2016, their flood warning system was “quite simply pretty antiquated” and “marginal at the best.” The county did attempt to design a system back in 2016, but Moser said the county simply couldn’t get any grant money to do so and the project never happened.
Moser, who is also a former NASA project manager, retired from his commissioner position in 2021.
Now, as of Monday, the 2025 Kerr County Commissioners court is once again looking to build a flood warning system.
Tom Moser will lead a five-person team with representatives from Kerr County, The City of Kerrville, the City of Ingram and the Upper Guadalupe River Authority. The State of Texas will make sure the project has funding.
“It’s a project that is important, it’s a challenge, the community needs it,” Moser said. “I’d like to be able to say, ‘mission accomplished.’ That mission was not accomplished (in 2016) so I’m ready to get back in and finish the mission.”
In 2016, some commissioners and community members did support a siren system, and the county wasn’t able to fund it anyway. After the horrifying flooding on July 4th that killed at least 117 people in Kerr County, opinions changed.
At the Kerr County Commissioners Court on Monday, Judge Rob Kelly said they needed to “take the ball and run with it” on a flood warning system right away. He said having the flood warning system would be critical to rebuilding confidence in the county’s many youth camps.
“We can’t just sit around saying ‘We need to get around to that’. We need to do this right now. We need to have this in place before next summer,” Kelly said. “We need to be able to entice our tourism business and camper business back to Kerr County next year and tell them we have a state-of-the-art flood warning system.”
KENS 5 followed up with Moser on Tuesday to find out what the next steps would be for the project.
The very next step, Moser said, would be to find out who his teammates are going to be.
After that the team will start looking at ideas for an advanced flood warning system. Moser said the system would likely have sirens but it would also need to tie into warnings for low water crossings in Kerr County.
“Sirens may be part of the solution, but a flood warning system is about taking action. Something to warn people about going across low water crossings,” Moser said. “We are going to look at everything possible.”
First, the team would likely look at other kinds of flood warning systems across Texas. Then, they will find out how the latest technology could be used to enhance those systems. On one hand, Moser is willing to look at computer systems that would be able to predict how rainfall would flow through the county. On the other hand, the system would still need to be streamlined enough able to warn people quickly.
“When a flood is imminent the public that could be at risk ought to have a minimum of 15 minutes to get to safety,” Moser said.
Moser wants the system to be able to send warnings without requiring any human input.
While the Lt. Governor and other state leaders have already said the state would pay for systems that meet state specifications, the greatest challenge at this point may be time. If county leaders want to have a system in place by the start of next summer, the team will have less than a year to put something in place.
Moser hopes to meet with the newly formed team once a week, and get their input, to get the project moving.