At least 120 people have died and some 173 people remain unaccounted for statewide, nearly a week after flash floods ravaged the Texas Hill Country.

Nearly a week after floodwaters swept away more than a hundred lives, Texas officials are facing heated questions over how much was – or was not – done in the early morning hours of Friday as a wall of water raced down the Guadalupe River.

In what experts call "Flash Flood Alley," the terrain reacts quickly to rainfall steep slopes, rocky ground, and narrow riverbeds leave little time for warning.

Over the last decade, an array of local and state agencies have missed opportunities to fund a flood warning system intended to avert the type of disaster that swept away dozens of youth campers and others in Kerr County,

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.

Two days before flash floods on the Guadalupe River in Texas killed dozens of campers at a Christian girls summer camp, a state inspector approved operations, noting there was a written plan for responding to natural disasters.

The Texas Hill Country has been notorious for flash floods caused by the Guadalupe River. Here's why the area is called "Flash Flood Alley."

Emergency responders kept hope alive as they combed through fallen trees and other debris that littered the hard-hit central Texas communities on the fifth day after devastating floods killed more than 100.