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(NEW YORK) — As state and local officials in Texas have come under scrutiny over the lack of sirens to warn people of impending flash flooding on the Guadalupe River that killed more than 100 people, records reviewed by ABC News show authorities of one of the hardest hit counties have had discussions about implementing such an alert system for nearly a decade.

The destructive flooding hit in the early morning hours of the Fourth of July, causing the Guadalupe River in Kerr County to rise by 26 feet in less than an hour, spilling its banks and flooding multiple summer camps and RV parks along the winding river.

On Monday, the death toll from the flooding climbed to more than 100, according to officials. At least 84 of the deaths occurred in Kerr County, including 27 children at Camp Mystic, an all-girls Christian summer camp near the banks of the Guadalupe, authorities said.

Ten girls and a counselor from Camp Mystic remained unaccounted for on Monday as search-and-rescue efforts stretched into their fourth day.

Since the catastrophe, local officials have faced questions about how warnings were sent out to the community, why evacuations weren’t ordered in low-lying areas and why there were no audible warning systems to alert campers along the Guadalupe.

“There should have been sirens here,” Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick told Fox News on Monday, adding that the subject will likely come up in a special session of the state legislature to analyze what occurred during the flooding.

Patrick added, “Had we had sirens around this area, up and down — the same type of sirens they have in Israel when there’s an attack coming, that would have blown very loudly — it’s possible that would have saved some of these lives.”

‘I’ve spent hours in those helicopters pulling kids out of trees’

Records reviewed by ABC News show that many of the same questions have been under discussion, specifically in Kerr County, for nearly a decade.

The minutes from a March 28, 2016, meeting of the Kerr County Commissioners’ Court, show that former Kerr County Sheriff Rusty Hierholzer pushed the commission to upgrade the county’s flood-warning system. At the time, Hierholzer told the commission that he was in favor of placing high-decibel outdoor sirens along the river that could go off and be heard from a distance of 3 miles when water gauges indicated flooding, according to the online minutes of the meeting.

According to the meeting minutes, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, then-Commissioner Tom Moser said there are state-of-the-art warning systems, including those with sirens, in other parts of the state, “even though this [Kerr County] is probably one of the highest flood-prone regions in the entire state.”

Hierholzer told the commission that the sirens, in addition to the county’s CodeRED emergency notification system, would work to quickly spread the word of imminent danger, according to the meeting minutes.

In that meeting, according to the minutes, Hierholzer raised what he called the “most important” issue — that of warning the summer camps along the Guadalupe, recalling a 1987 flash flood in which 10 children from the Pot O’ Gold Ranch Christian camp in Comfort, Texas, were killed attempting to evacuate the camp in a bus.

“I’ve spent hours in those helicopters pulling kids out of trees,” Hierholzer told the commission, according to the meeting minutes.

At the time, Hierholzer added that a lot of people in the county were not signed up for CodeRED alerts and that it was difficult to get people to sign up for the phone alerts.

“So yes, you need both. You need the sirens, and you need CodeRED to try to make sure we’ll notify everybody we can when it’s coming up,” Hierholzer said, according to the meeting minutes.

Moser, according to the meeting minutes, told his fellow commissioners that upgrading the warning system to include sirens was “not hugely expensive,” adding that the units would cost around $40,000 each.

The Kerr County Commissioners’ Court applied for a nearly $1 million FEMA grant, according to the meeting minutes. The county’s application was not selected, but it was not immediately clear why.

Moser could not be reached for comment by ABC News on Monday. He told The Wall Street Journal on Sunday that the county considered paying for the upgrade of its flood warning system, but eventually decided not to include it in its annual budget.

“It was probably just, I hate to say the word, priorities. Trying not to raise taxes,” Moser told the newspaper.

Reached by ABC News by phone on Monday, Hierholzer declined to comment on the statements he made to the commissioners more than nine years ago.

“This is probably one of the worst disasters Kerr County has ever seen. So right now, I don’t want to get into all this kind of political stuff — what we could’ve, would’ve, should’ve done,” Hierholzer told ABC News.

Officials concede they were caught off guard

Kerr County officials said during a news conference on Saturday that they were caught off guard by the torrential rains that caused the Guadalupe River to rise to near-historic levels in a matter of minutes.

“We didn’t know this flood was coming,” Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly said. “We have floods all the time. This is the most dangerous river valley in the United States, and we deal with floods on a regular basis. When it rains, we get water. We had no reason to believe that this was going to be anything like what’s happened here, none whatsoever.”

But during a news conference on Sunday, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said the state began preparing for the storm last Wednesday by pre-positioning assets and resources in flood-prone areas of the state, including Kerr County.

Chief W. Nim Kidd of the Texas Division of Emergency Management said alerts were also sent out.

“From a technical perspective, there were multiple warning systems that are out there, and all of us can choose to sign up for warning systems in certain areas depending on the local government that they’re in and the way their system works,” Kidd said during the governor’s press conference. But he added that some places have spotty cell phone reception.

Kidd added, “There can be all kinds of alert systems that are sent, and we know that some general messaging was sent early, some urgent warnings were sent at various times. But just sending the message is not the same as receiving the message, having a plan to do something when you receive the message and then the ability to implement that plan.”

During a news conference on Monday, Kerrville City Manager Dalton Rice said staff at some of the summer camps on the Guadalupe were monitoring the rising river at 3:30 a.m. on the day of the flood and managed to move campers to higher ground.

Asked by reporters why mandatory evacuations were not issued by the city or county, Rice said, “Evacuations are a delicate balance because if you evacuate too late, you then risk putting buses, or cars, or vehicles, or campers on roads … trying to get them out, which can make it more challenging because these flash floods happen very quickly.”

When pressed on why evacuations were not announced far in advance of the storm, Rice added, “It’s like disasters in Texas everywhere — it’s very tough to make those calls because what we also don’t want to do is cry wolf.”

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(MILWAUKEE) — A federal magistrate judge in Wisconsin has recommended that the case against a Milwaukee judge accused of helping an undocumented man evade arrest by immigration authorities not be dismissed.

Judge Hannah Dugan, 65, was arrested in April and charged in a two-count federal indictment alleging that she knowingly concealed a person sought for arrest by immigration authorities and for obstruction of official Department of Homeland Security removal proceedings.

Lawyers for Dugan, in part citing the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in President Donald Trump’s immunity case, have argued she has judicial immunity for official acts and that her prosecution is unconstitutional.

Late Monday — in a non-binding decision — U.S. Magistrate Judge Nancy Joseph issued a 37-page report and recommendation, reaching the conclusion that there is no shield from prosecution in this case.

The recommendation will be presented to U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman, who will make the final decision on the motion.

“It is well-established and undisputed that judges have absolute immunity from civil lawsuits for monetary damages when engaging in judicial acts,” the magistrate judge wrote in her decision. “This, however, is not a civil case. And review of the case law does not show an extension of this established doctrine to the criminal context. Accordingly, I recommend that Dugan’s motion to dismiss the indictment on judicial immunity grounds be denied.”

Joseph noted that while many of Dugan’s alleged actions could arguably be considered judicial acts, that does not mean prosecution is barred “where the indictment alleges that the acts were done ‘corruptly’ or to facilitate a violation of the criminal law.”

“What matters is whether the judge, even in performing her official duties, is accused of committing a crime,” Joseph wrote.

According to federal prosecutors, Dugan encountered federal agents in Milwaukee County Circuit Court on April 18, who were there to arrest an undocumented man appearing in her courtroom on a battery charge.

According to prosecutors, after speaking to the agents, Dugan directed them to the chief judge’s down the hall and then sent the man and his attorney out a non-public door in an alleged attempt, authorities claim, to help him evade arrest on immigration violations.

The man was later arrested.

The magistrate judge also recommended that Dugan’s motion to dismiss the case based on the contention that her prosecution violates the 10th Amendment’s separation of powers be denied.

The magistrate stressed that her recommendation is not a ruling on the merits of the case or on facts disputed by the parties.

“Dugan is presumed innocent, and innocent she remains, unless and until the government proves the allegations against her beyond a reasonable doubt to a jury at trial,” Joseph wrote.

The parties in the case have 14 days to file any written objections to Joseph’s report and recommendation.

“We are disappointed in the magistrate judge’s non-binding recommendation, and we will appeal it,” one of Dugan’s attorney Steven Biskupic said in a statement to the Associated Press. “This is only one step in what we expect will be a long journey to preserve the independence and integrity of our courts.”

Dugan has pleaded not guilty to the federal indictment. The case had been set for trial for July 21, but was pushed back until the immunity issue was settled. A new trial date has not been set.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court suspended Dugan in the wake of her arrest, stating in an order that it found it was “in the public interest that she be temporarily relieved of her official duties.”

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(ALVARADO, Texas) — State and federal officials announced on Monday that 10 people were arrested for engaging in a “planned ambush” on an ICE detention facility in Texas over the Fourth of July holiday.

The individuals were charged with attempted murder of a federal officer, according to court records.

The incident occurred at the Prairieland Detention Facility in Alvarado, Texas, on Friday, according to Nancy Larson, the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Texas.

At approximately 10:37 p.m., 10 to 12 individuals dressed in black, military-style clothing began shooting fireworks and engaging in acts of vandalism at the facility, Larson said during a press conference.

Larson said the incident “was a planned ambush with the intent to kill ICE corrections officers.”

Some individuals drew correction officers out of the facility using the fireworks while others damaged vehicles and vandalized the facility with graffiti, Larson said.

When an Alvarado police officer arrived on the scene, one of the individuals shot him in the neck. Another individual shot 20 to 30 rounds at the facility correction officers, according to Larson.

All assailants fled the scene, though all have since been apprehended, the U.S. attorney said.

Bradford Morris, who goes by Megan, was one of the suspects that allegedly fled the scene, according to court records. He was stopped a short while later, with a magazine clip and Kevlar vests.

Morris allegedly told police that he met some people online who wanted to “make a little noise” at the detention center, according to court records.

Law enforcement found 12 sets of body armor, spray paint, a flag saying “resist fascism, fight oligarchy,” flyers saying “fight ice terror with class war free all political prisoners,” more fireworks, weapons and cell phones across multiple searches over the weekend.

Police also found two AR-15s nearby, according to court records.

No employees at the Prairieland Detention Facility were harmed during the shooting incident and the officer who was shot is expected to recover, according to Josh Johnson, the acting field office director for ERO Dallas.

The U.S. attorney’s office has charged the individuals with three counts of attempted murder of a federal officer, and each of the suspects is also charged with three counts of discharging a firearm in relation to a crime of violence.

The FBI is working alongside local and state law enforcement on this investigation.

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(FAIRFIELD, Idaho) — A possible sighting of Travis Decker — the dad accused of murdering his three daughters over a month ago — is being investigated in the wake of a family saying they may have spotted the fugitive father in Idaho late last week, according to the U.S. Marshals Service.

Paityn Decker, 9; Evelyn Decker, 8; and Olivia Decker, 5, were found dead near the Rock Island Campground in Chelan County, Washington, on June 2, after they left home for a planned visit with their father on May 30, according to police.

It’s been over one month since the girls’ bodies were found, and the manhunt for Decker, an Army veteran, continues.

On Saturday, the U.S. Marshals Service received a tip from a family camping in the Bear Creek area of Sawtooth National Forest — about 32 miles north of Fairfield, Idaho — saying they saw someone “consistent with the description of Travis Decker,” the U.S. Marshals Service said in a press release on Sunday.

The person was described as a white male, anywhere from 5 feet, 8 inches tall to 5 feet, 10 inches tall, wearing a black mesh cap, black gauged earrings, a cream colored T-shirt, black shorts, low-top sneakers and a black Garmin-style watch, officials said. He also had a long ponytail, an “overgrown” beard and mustache and was carrying a black JanSport backpack, officials said.

The U.S. Marshals Greater Idaho Fugitive Task Force, a statewide cooperative to “locate and arrest violent state and federal fugitives,” will investigate the possible sighting, with the help of local Idaho officials.

The U.S. Marshals Service is also still offering a $20,000 reward for information leading directly to Decker’s arrest.

“This suspect should be considered armed and dangerous,” the U.S. Marshals Service said on July 3.

Last week, officials revealed that bloody handprints found on the tailgate of Decker’s truck — which was found near the girls’ bodies — matched the father’s DNA profile.

Chelan County officials said last week that drones and cadaver and tracking dogs are continuing to be used in the search efforts. The National Park Service is also planning to send out “swift water search and rescue teams in the near future to conduct more searches of bodies of water around the crime scene,” officials said.

An affidavit previously revealed that Decker’s Google searches leading up to the murders allegedly included “how does a person move to Canada” and “how to relocate to Canada.”

Decker is currently wanted for three counts of first-degree murder and three counts of kidnapping, police said.

Officials said anyone who has any information on Decker or knows of his whereabouts should not attempt to contact him, but instead call 911 or the U.S. Marshals Communication Center immediately.

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