AUSTIN, Texas — Texas has allocated $4 million to develop a real-time flood warning system for the Hill Country region following the July 4, 2025 flooding that killed more than 130 people, including nearly 30 children, state officials and researchers said.
The grant from the office of Governor Greg Abbott funds a project led by the University of Texas at Arlington in partnership with Rice University to create a system designed to provide earlier and more detailed flood alerts for communities along the Upper Guadalupe River watershed.
Researchers said they plan to release an initial version of the system by the end of the summer, with a full rollout expected by September 2027. The system will begin as a web-based dashboard and may later expand into a mobile application.
Nick Fang, director of UT Arlington’s Water Engineering Research Center, said the system will combine rainfall radar data, river flow measurements, elevation data, and weather modeling, along with additional monitoring stations in Kerr County and surrounding areas.
Fang said the system will also depend on effective communication between emergency managers and the public.
“Without a very sound and reliable communication channel, the information will not be dispatched to the final users,” Fang said.
The initiative follows broader state investments in flood monitoring. Lawmakers previously allocated $24 million to Texas Tech University to expand its West Texas Mesonet, a statewide network of more than 170 weather stations that collects real-time environmental data.
Kerr County recently installed its first outdoor flood warning sirens along the Guadalupe River as part of local mitigation efforts.
Philip Bedient, director of Rice University’s Severe Storm Prediction, Education and Evacuation from Disasters (SSPEED) Center, said the new system aims to improve early warning time before emergency alerts and sirens are activated.
Bedient said the system is designed to provide up to three hours of lead time for evacuation decisions.
