“There should have been sirens here,” Patrick said.

“There’s a lot of comment going on, and that will be for another day, about when the alerts went out, but there was an alert around 1:30—very late—but about the flash flood,” Patrick said. “Had we had sirens along this area, all up and down… it’s possible that would have saved some of these lives.”

Some Texas cities, like San Marcos, have flood sirens, but Patrick said voters in the area didn’t want them, citing high costs.

“If the city can’t afford it, then the state will step up,” Patrick said. “And we need to have these in place by next summer.”

“We’ll fund it from the state because we just shouldn’t have this happen,” Patrick said.