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.

The Guadalupe River has a history of deadly flooding. Here is a look over the decades. (AP video Marshall Ritzel/Albee Zhang)

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.

Over the last decade, an array of local and state agencies have missed opportunities to fund a flood warning system intended to avert the type of disaster that swept away dozens of youth campers and others in Kerr County,