A stretch of chain-link fence along the Guadalupe River in the Texas town of Kerrville has become a focal point for the community's grief

With more than 170 still missing, communities must reconcile how to pick up the pieces around a waterway that remains both a wellspring and a looming menace.

In what experts call "Flash Flood Alley," the terrain reacts quickly to rainfall steep slopes, rocky ground, and narrow riverbeds leave little time for warning.

President Donald Trump is visiting Texas on Friday to assess catastrophic flooding that has killed at least 120 people.

People awoke from water rushing around them during the early morning hours of July 4, all along the Guadalupe River in the Texas Hill Country. Residents were seemingly caught off guard, but warnings had been issued days and hours before floodwaters began carrying away homes,

The organizations working together to help the flood victims said that 'no additional in-kind donations (clothing, food, supplies) are needed in Kerrville.' They said the best way to help is with monetary donations.

Officials in Kerr County, where the majority of the deaths from the July 4 flash floods occurred, have yet to detail what actions they took in the early hours of the disaster.

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. The force of floodwater is often more powerful and surprising than people imagine.