Phones buzzed across Texas just before 8 p.m. Wednesday with a high-priority emergency alert. But it wasn't about flooding, a storm, or a missing child. It was about a five-day-old shooting at an ICE detention center hundreds of miles away.

As the state mourns the deaths caused by the floods, the disaster is drawing attention to the effectiveness of the Blue Alert system.

A firefighter appears to have called for emergency alerts at least an hour before the first warnings were received.