MANSFIELD — A fifth day of search and rescue efforts are underway in Central Texas after catastrophic flooding ravaged the area over the July Fourth weekend.
As of Monday evening, the death toll surpassed 100 people, with several others still reported missing, according to the Associated Press.
The devastating flash flooding along the Guadalupe River, located outside of San Antonio, “grew to the worst” over the middle of the holiday weekend, while most people were asleep, the AP reported.
The Guadalupe River rose 26 feet in only 45 minutes as a fierce storm dropped the majority of its 12 inches in the early hours of Friday morning.
Criticism over flash flood warnings — or a lack thereof — from survivors of the flood has been reported over the past few days.
Some survivors said they received no emergency warnings, according to the AP, despite a Kerr County government report from last year, which warned the threat for flooding was worsening.
Locally, Sarah Potes and the Richland County Emergency Management Agency are actively working to identify and mitigate the potential for disasters of this level around the county.
Richland County’s EMA is currently in the process of updating its hazard mitigation plan, which is set to expire in June 2026 and must be updated every five years. From start to finish, the update takes about a year to complete.
Potes said the collaborative process involves working with community partners and officials from around the county to identify what threats pose risks to Richland County.
Potential hazards include natural disasters like tornadoes, flooding and winter storms, as well as hazardous incidents, such as the release of dangerous substances that pose a threat to the community.
“We identify the biggest hazards and threats to our county and we work on a plan to mitigate and prevent these hazards,” Potes said.
“This plan is beneficial not only for identifying these hazards, but down the road it could potentially lead to some grant funding — if there is funds available — for mitigation in the future.
“Beneficially, I think it’s really great to bring everyone together to collaborate and refresh our minds on what the biggest threats and hazards in our county are.”
Mitigation plan focused on threat identification
Richland County is no stranger to severe weather.
Notable weather hazards from recent memory include significant flooding along the Black Fork and Clear Fork rivers — both principal tributaries of the Mohican River — in Shelby in 2007, 2011 and 2013, as well as more recently in Bellville.
Fierce tornados have also hit Shelby, Plymouth and southeastern Richland County within the past six years.
Potes said updating the county’s mitigation plan is beneficial because it brings officials together from municipalities, villages and townships across Richland County.
Richland County Commissioner Darrell Banks said he was involved in this process 10 years ago.
“There’s different problems and different situations (across the county),” Banks said. “The flooding in Shelby is entirely different from the flooding we get in Bellville.
“A lot of times we just sit down and talk. This really does become a plan.”
Future meetings will be scheduled during the update process, which the public is welcome to attend, Potes said. The EMA will announce meeting information as it becomes available.
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Alert notifications
The Richland County Notification System allows residents to sign up to receive emergency and community alerts. Those alerts can be received via cell phone, work phone, text message, email and home phone.
Richland County provides its residents this free service, but notification delivery is dependent upon external providers. The county cannot guarantee that notifications will be received by the intended recipient, according to its website.
Potes said Richland County also has the ability to utilize the Integrated Public Alert & Warning System — FEMA’s national system for local alerting.
The EMA director said she’s discussed IPAWS with commissioners, most recently on Monday with Commissioner Cliff Mears, regarding when and why the county would activate that system.
“To my knowledge, we have not done so in our county,” Potes said. “(With IPAWS), we can send a message to anybody who is in Richland County. It bases it off of the (phone) towers.
“That is definitely something that we are going to work on our procedures of when we would do so, because we don’t want to be sending out alerts to everyone that hasn’t subscribed for them unless it’s a serious situation. But we do have the ability to do that.”
Potes said the way these alerts are sent is similar to an amber alert. Not everyone signs up to receive those, but most still receive them anyway.