As the Guadalupe River swelled from a wall of water heading downstream , sirens blared over the tiny river community of Comfort -- a last-ditch warning to get out for those who had missed cellphone al

Officials in flood-stricken central Texas on Wednesday again deflected mounting questions about whether they could have done more to warn people ahead of devastating flash flooding that killed at least 119 people on July 4.

At least 90 people have died following last Friday's flooding, including 27 campers and counsellors, with more rain in the forecast.

Over just two hours, the Guadalupe River at Comfort, Texas, rose from hip-height to three stories tall, sending water weighing as much as the Empire State building downstream roughly every minute it remained at its crest.

At least 119 people have been found dead in nearly a week since heavy rainfall overwhelmed the river and flowed through homes and youth camps in the early morning hours of July 4. Ninety-five of those killed were in the hardest-hit county in central Texas, Kerr County, where the toll includes at least three dozen children.

Texas inspectors signed off on Camp Mystic's emergency planning just two days before catastrophic flooding killed more than two dozen people at the all-girls Christian summer camp, most of them children.

Over the last decade, an array of Texas state and local agencies missed opportunities to fund a flood warning system, including failing to secure roughly $1 million US for a project to better protect Kerr County’s 50,