“There is no longer any hope of finding survivors”

Mountains of uprooted trees. Carcasses of recreational vehicles embedded in several meters of mud. And this poignant smell: that of putrefaction.

Six days after the sudden flood of the Guadalupe river, devastation is total in the Keys Resort trailer park, in the county of Kerr, in the South Center of Texas. Dozens of volunteers still strive to remove the debris, layer after layer, using chainsaws and tractors.

Police were also dispatched on the spot Thursday afternoon during my visit: they suspected the presence of a corpse under the rubble.

Which put the chip in their ear: the putrid smell, and the flies of flies, which twirl in the heavy air of this day at 35 degrees. A sign that research has just moved to a new stage.

The mission to save the 170 disappeared people during the July 4 flood turned into an operation to recover bodies. Including those of around thirty girls, who stayed at the Mystic camp, not far from here. Their little remains will be added to the 120 corpses found so far.

Preliminary assessment: nearly 300 dead.

“We do not neglect any track, we really search everywhere, but there is no longer any hope of finding survivors,” explains the volunteer Jay Arredondo, who has been working hard for six days at the destroyed park of Keys Resort, in the small town of Center Point.

The 38 -year -old big guy is not looking for any culprit to explain the tragedy. He turns, even when I approach the subject.

Comments made almost word for word by President Donald Trump, who went to the devastated region on Friday with his wife, Melania, and his secretary to internal security, Kristi Noem. He made a tour of the most affected areas before lending himself to a press conference.

Authorities have done impeccable work to limit damage, Vociferated Trump to a journalist, who questioned him about the failure of preventive measures. “Only a diabolical person would dare to ask for such a thing. »»

However, this is the question that everyone has been asking for a week. How could such a failure have occurred, in this easy county of Texas, accustomed for decades to the sporadic overflows of its main river?

The hypotheses abound.

Cellular alerts sent too late, deficient wireless network in the Guadalupe river valley, budget cuts imposed on the Meteorological Services Office by the Trump administration: the survey will be long to remove the precise wire from the events.

But what comes out more and more is that a very simple mechanism could have saved lives: good old thunderous mermaids.

Such a network would have alerted the hundreds of people who were sleeping with closed fists on the edge of the stream, when its level jumped eight meters in less than two hours in the middle of the night.

The sound alarm could also have aroused those who were subscribed to emergency alerts on their laptop, but which had no cellular reception in this isolated vacation sector.

It is not, failing to have tried to set up a mermaid system.

The County of Kerr asked for funding at least three times to the Government of the State of Texas, and the Federal Agency for the Management of Emergency Situations (FEMA). Without success: no authority wanted to pay the bill by just under $ 1 million.

Several are biting their fingers today, but no one accepts the blame …

Kerr County, an hour north of San Antonio, is ultra -republican. Its 53,000 residents have voted more than 75 % for Donald Trump since 2016.

The “Hill Country” has dozens of green mountains, around forty summer camps and the magnificent Guadalupe river, popular with vacationers in all of Texas. It is a tightly woven community, as evidenced by the presence of hundreds of volunteers who continue to rattle the banks from morning to evening to find victims.

But it is also a county with a neoliberal tendency, where the government’s interventions are abhorred.

The possibility of installing sirens has been the subject of harsh discussions since 2016. Federal funds were proposed at some point, but several residents refused to accept them. They did not want their county to be “bought” by Washington subsidies, reports a survey of Texas Tribune.

Only two localities have emergency sirens throughout the region. The small town of Comfort, located at the crossroads of the Guadalupe river and a stream, used its brand new, for the first time on July 4.

Danny Morales, the deputy director of volunteer firefighters, is the one who insisted for the installation of such a system in his village of 2,300 inhabitants. It was not the Government of Texas that has paid, but rather a local non -profit organization.

System cost: $ 50,000.

“The state would never have paid for that, since public security is not its responsibility,” explains the 71 -year -old man, met in the small command post of his barracks.

He showed me several cards and graphics, which detail the climb of dramatic waters on July 4. The Guadalupe river flood threatened to flood – once again – the stream that crisscrosses its city. It activated the sirens 30 minutes before the rise of the waters.

Some bordering properties have suffered damage, but no deaths have been deplored.

Such a system could undoubtedly have been able to save lives in the neighboring county of Kerr, believes the volunteer firefighter. “I don’t know if it could have saved everyone, but it would surely have helped …”

Comfort already had an old mermaid, formerly used for fires, which was refurbished at a cost of $ 20,000. It was reinstalled in another city sector and also started before flooding.

The city now has two, for a total of $ 70,000. An average invoice of $ 30 per capita …

The county of Kerr is still under massive emergency measures. Research will continue until a maximum of remains are found, which could take months.

Like President Trump, the Governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, rejects the search for culprits in connection with the failure of emergency measures. The word “blame” is a “loser language”, he launched to journalists earlier this week.

The hundreds of families of the victims, as are the political opponents of the Republican governor, will not accept this answer.