INGRAM, Texas – Ingram city council members officially voted in favor of flood sirens during a Monday afternoon meeting.
The council members voted for the new sirens in the aftermath of the Fourth of July flooding that killed at least 108 people in Kerr County. The bodies of nine people were recovered in neighboring Kendall County, officials confirmed last month.
While installation of the sirens was approved by the council, the exact cost, how it will be paid for and when the sirens will be installed has yet to be determined.
The meeting, which began at noon on Monday, started with councilman Ray Howard, who joined his fellow council members from a hospital bed.
Howard told the council that the three proposed sirens (one large siren and two smaller sirens) would be installed on telephone poles by the Hill Country Telephone Cooperative in an area between the Ingram Dam and Riverview Road, which is located east of the dam.
“I wish we would’ve had something prior to (July 4 flooding), but we didn’t,” Howard told the council via video call. “It wasn’t on anybody’s real mind at the time.”
During the meeting, the councilman shared two harrowing moments he witnessed on the Fourth of July.
“That’s a hard one for me because I did see people (on July 4) going by in a motor home screaming for help. I don’t know if they survived,” Howard said. “I saw a 13- or 14-year-old young man. We made eye contact. He disappeared a couple seconds later underwater. It was nothing I could do to help him. In my state that I’m in right now — dealing with Stage 4 cancer — I just couldn’t do anything.”
Howard also cited KSAT Investigates’ report on the Kerr County dispatch audio from the morning of the flooding. In the report, at 4:22 a.m. on July 4, a first responder asked a dispatcher if a CodeRED alert be sent to nearby Hunt residents to seek higher ground.
The dispatcher told the first responder that a supervisor would need to approve that request and also informed the first responder that a rescue team was en route.
The earliest CodeRED alert KSAT has been able to confirm was sent via text message and phone call to a person with a Hunt address at 5:34 a.m. on July 4.
“There was, like, almost 40 minutes — 40 minutes!” Howard said. “We could have had everybody out of the RV parks. We could have had everybody out in the area to where the high water got into that low-water area. The loss of life would have been way less. Absolutely way less. 100%.”
Howard said his cancer diagnosis and treatment have invigorated him to be active in response to the tragedy.
The council then welcomed Chris Gordon, a City of Hickory Creek, Texas, council member who is also the director of sales and marketing for American Communications, a self-described public safety firm.
The company manufactures sirens that can alert people to weather events such as floods, tornadoes and hail.
During his presentation to the council, Gordon said the siren system will be specific to Ingram.
“With this system, your system will be independent for your city only and will activate automatically based on the National Weather Service pushes — based on the rules and the recipes that you and I set together," Gordon told the council on Monday.
Howard and Ingram Mayor Claud B. Jordan, Jr. voiced their belief that the city also work to acquire sensors from a separate company. Those sensors would be placed on flood gauges and trigger the siren system, but the council did not take any action on sensors on Monday.
Howard said Kerr County officials told him that they want the city to “slow down” on installing sirens in Ingram. He claimed the Upper Guadalupe River Authority wants to conduct a $1.2 million study to see “if sirens work.”
Before the council voted in favor of sirens, Ingram Mayor Pro Tem Rocky Hawkins expressed additional caution to the council.
“I want to move forward, but I want to do the right thing to make sure we don’t get into a battle with the (Kerr) county on what we’re doing and what they’re (Kerr County) doing,” Hawkins said. “We’ve got to protect our end of it.”
Background
Ingram was one of several towns in the Texas Hill Country affected by the deadly July 4 flooding. On Aug. 8, Kerr County officials identified 117 victims killed in connection with the floods.
During its most recent meeting on July 21, the city was to begin the process of purchasing a flood warning system in the days following the flooding.
However, the discussion was tabled for Monday’s meeting. A lack of communication from Kerr County officials left many Ingram city leaders frustrated following the July 21 meeting.
The alert systems have become a hyper-focused issue for many along the Guadalupe River corridor after the deadly flooding. However, moves at the state and county level have drawn criticism for ignoring available funds or letting bills to aid in warnings die in the Texas Legislature.
Warning systems in Ingram were a topic Councilman Raymond Howard said he and the other councilmembers would push for, with or without county support.
“I’m going to be a thorn in the side. I’ve already ruffled some feathers at county commission meetings, but I don’t care,” Howard told KSAT last month while recovering in the hospital.
More Ingram-related coverage of the Hill Country floods on KSAT: