The deadly Texas floods have brought the state's approach to land approvals, especially in flood-prone areas, under more scrutiny.

The survival of people in local camps and low-lying areas depended not on official evacuations but on whether they were paying attention, on their own, to weather alerts in the middle of the night.

Plans to develop a flood monitoring system in the Texas county hit hardest by deadly floods were scheduled to begin only a few weeks later.

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 alerts and firefighters going street-to-street telling people to get out.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Wednesday ordered state legislators to convene a special session on Monday as the death toll rose to at least 120 people and 172 reported missing in Fourth of July flooding in the Hill Country.

The death toll from the July 4th weekend flooding in Central Texas has climbed to 118. Across the state, more than 170 people are considered missing. Texas Governor Greg Abbott has promised that the search will not stop until all of the missing are found.