Two top leaders in a rural Texas county were asleep and a third was out of town in the initial hours of a catastrophic flood that caused widespread destruction and killed more than 130 people.

For the first time since catastrophic flooding killed more than 100 people in Kerr County, Texas, the county emergency management director conceded that he was sick and asleep as the water rose to historic levels on the Guadalupe River.

All key leading officials from the Texas county hardest hit by the July 4 flash flooding that killed at least 136 people, were absent from an emergency briefing call ahead of the flash flooding incident,