KERRVILLE, Texas (AP) — Before heading to bed before the Fourth of July holiday, Christopher Flowers checked the weather while staying at a friend’s house along the Guadalupe River. Nothing in the forecast alarmed him. “What they need is some kind of external system, like a tornado warning that tells people to get out now,” Flowers, 44, said. Hours before a massive wall of floodwater barreled down a river in the heart of Texas Hill Country before sunrise on Friday, forecasters with the National Weather Service warned people that dangerous conditions were brewing. An initial flood watch for the hard-hit area was issued at 1:18 p.m. Thursday predicting rain amounts of between 5 to 7 inches. Weather messaging from the office included automated alerts delivered to mobile phones to people in threatened areas. Those warnings grew increasingly ominous in the early morning hours of Friday, urging people to move to higher ground and evacuate flood-prone areas.