COMFORT, Texas – With one press of button number two at the Comfort Volunteer Fire Department, sirens can sound off.
That’s what happened last Friday morning during the Hill Country floods.
“This is the first time we’ve ever blown both (sirens) as an actual warning,” Assistant Chief Daniel Morales said.
The new warning system in Comfort is one that neighbors upstream on the Guadalupe River didn’t have.
That’s why KSAT asked Kendall County officials to show us their system.
Kendall County officials say they began monitoring the weather hours before the flooding.
“The night before, we started monitoring the conditions out in Kerr County,” County Judge Shane Stolarczyk said.
Brady Constantine, the fire marshal and emergency management coordinator for Kendall County, said he stayed late Thursday night into Friday morning to track the storm.
Constantine said he went home around 2 a.m. Friday morning, he woke up to the warning alarms he had set himself around 4 a.m. Those alarms told him that water was rising on the Guadalupe River.
After waking up, he called Morales at the Comfort Volunteer Fire Department. Morales was already at the station and had a command set up by 4:30 a.m.
That morning, the Comfort Volunteer Fire Department was watching data from water gauges along the Guadalupe River and Cypress Creek.
“It didn’t get any better, so we were monitoring the river, and it was coming up awful quick,” Morales said.
Notifications sent by Kendall County indicate that the first wireless emergency message was sent to residents before 5:30 a.m. for a flood warning.
By 6:30 a.m., Constantine said he had set up an Emergency Operations Center at the Boerne Police Department.
“We started looking at what resources we had and what resources we needed,” Constantine said.
Three more alerts were issued on the wireless warning system between 7 a.m. and 8:06 a.m. Minutes before that last notification, Kendall County said it issued a mandatory evacuation for people living near the river.
“We had a three-prong approach to this, and I think that was a very significant factor,” Stolarczyk said.
The KSAT weather team said the river began rising in Comfort just after 9 a.m., and it crested at 10:45 a.m. The Comfort Volunteer Fire Department sounded the flood sirens at 10:52 a.m.
This flood was the first time Comfort’s new siren system was activated. The county upgraded these emergency alerts back in 2024. Kendall County informed us that this cost roughly $70,000. A nonprofit paid $60,000 and Bandera Electric donated the poles.
However, it is also worth noting that Comfort is miles down the river from Hunt and Ingram, which allowed residents more time to prepare.
“After seeing the success of the sirens this go around, does that motivate you to get more across the county?” KSAT’s Avery Everett asked.
“Yes,” Stolarczyk said. “We’re going to sit back and do an evaluation after this to see how we can improve our system.”
Two other warnings were sent to residents around 11 a.m. on Friday for a Flash Flood Warning. At 1:30 p.m. that same day, another notification said the river was still rising. The next morning, around 11 a.m. on Saturday, Kendall County sent an alert about continued rescue efforts.
Now, seven days later, officials say search and rescue remains the priority.
“The search teams from the state and feds have done a preliminary search through our area, they’re working on their secondary,” Stolarczyk said.
As of Thursday, eight bodies have been found in Kendall County, but none have been identified as residents of their area. As certified search teams scour the Guadalupe River, Kendall County leaders said lessons are being learned, but they’re fortunate to have had this system in place.
“That warning system was utilized and was a significant factor in us having a quick response,” Stolarczyk said.
If you are a resident of Kendall County and would like to receive wireless emergency notifications, you can sign up here.
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