Eight-year-old girls at sleep-away camp, families crammed into recreational vehicles, local residents traveling to or from work. These are some of the victims.

Torrential rain flooded creeks, streams and the Guadalupe River, where the water swelled more than 26 feet in 45 minutes.

With more than 170 still missing, communities must reconcile how to pick up the pieces around a waterway that remains both a wellspring and a looming menace.

A large percentage of people still unaccounted for were probably visiting the area, Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly said.

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.

On the night the deadly floodwaters raged down the Guadalupe River in Texas, the National Weather Service forecast office in Austin/San Antonio was missing a key member of its team: the warning coordination meteorologist,