Texas officials refuse to say whether the on-duty emergency officer was awake while devastating flooding swept through the central region of the Lone Star State — as the death toll in the worst-affected county rose to 87 Tuesday.

During a tense press conference, Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha was unable to answer direct questions about who was in charge and whether they were asleep early Friday morning when the Guadalupe River burst its banks.

The sheriff admitted he was only informed about the flood waters ravaging his county at some time between 4 a.m. and 5 a.m. on July 4, by which point the river had already risen 27 feet in some 45 minutes.

Asked repeatedly about who was in charge during the flash flooding alerts, Sheriff Leitha snapped back and said he wasn’t focused on getting the important question answered. 

“As I’ve told you several times, that is not my priority this time,” the sheriff said. “There are three priorities, that’s locating the people out there, identifying, notifying the next of kin — that is what I’m taking as my job as sheriff.”

He also gave a testy response to a question about whether the emergency manager was awake when the flooding started, and “push[ed] the button to issue an emergency alert” to all cellphones in the area.

“It’s not that easy as you just push a button, OK,” he said. “There’s a lot more to that, and we’ve told you several times.”

The sheriff and other Texas officials, including Lt. Col. Ben Baker of the Texas Game Wardens, evaded more questions from reporters about the county’s alert system.

At least 87 bodies —including 30 children — have been recovered in Kerr County, up from the 75 reported dead in the county on Monday.

The number of missing campers at Camp Mystic, a girls’ Christian summer camp devastated by the floods, has gone down from 10 to 5.

It isn’t known if the discovered missing campers are among the increased death toll.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is also expected to hold a press conference in Kerrville, the Kerr County seat, at 5 p.m. local time Tuesday.

The Texas Hill Country is struggling to come to terms with the magnitude of last week’s flooding, after record-high waters swept away entire businesses and neighborhoods.

Lorena Guillen’s Blue Oak RV Park was washed away in Friday morning’s flooding.

She told The Post how she recalled closing Howdy’s Bar, which she owns on the premises of the RV park, at around 12:45 a.m. Friday morning, just as the rain started to come down hard, and received a possible flash flood notification shortly afterward.

Guillen said she didn’t think anything of it, as they often get flash flood warnings, and normally just turn off their phones.

“About 2:30 I couldn’t sleep. I went all the way to the edge of the water and I looked down at the river and it was fine,” she said. “I called the sheriff’s department at that time and they had no information how the river levels were. I asked them ‘do I need to evacuate?’ and they said, ‘we have no information right now, we don’t know.’ And they didn’t. There was no indication of anything.”

She then went back to bed, only to be awoken again an hour later by the lights of the rescue team as flood waters tore through her business, sweeping away all 28 RVs on the site.

Data from the National Weather Service showed that some three to six inches of rain were forecast for last weekend, chief of the Texas Division of Emergency Management (TDEM) Nim Kidd told a press conference this week.

“However, some of those models showed numbers that were higher than that, which caused us to activate additional resources and have them in the area just in case,” he said.

State emergency-response resources were activated last Wednesday, a TDEM press release stated.

“Heavy rainfall with the potential to cause flash flooding is anticipated across West Texas and the Hill Country,” the statement read.

On Thursday, the readiness level of the state emergency operations center was raised to “escalated response,” the TDEM said.

Assets, including swiftwater rescue boat squads, helicopters with hoisting capabilities, a tactical marine unit, and high-profile vehicles to aid stranded motorists, were all in place by noon Thursday, Kidd said.

At 1:18 p.m., a flood watch was issued for portions of south central Texas through Friday morning, with up to 7 inches forecast in parts by the National Weather Service office for Austin and San Antonio.

But by 6:10 p.m. Thursday, a flash flood warning across central Texas was issued.

Kerr County’s flash flood warning for “catastrophic” potential loss of life was issued at 1:14 a.m. on July 4, when most people were asleep, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Some time between 2:30 a.m. and 4 a.m., noticing rising water levels, a group of 70 children and their chaperones attending a conference at the Presbyterian Mo-Ranch Assembly, a summer camp 7 miles from Camp Mystic, were moved to higher ground, the chief executive of the center, Tim Huchton, said.

Guillen, who has lived in Kerrville for 10 years, still doesn’t blame officials for last week’s tragedy.

“I think they did the best they could with what they had. The river flooding authorities not having a budget enough to have censors and alarms installed that’s the part that should have been changed. Without having a budget or resources, their hands are tied as well,” she said.

“It’s inconceivable how peaceful and quiet it was the evening before and a few hours later. It was not expected. I don’t think no official, nobody could have predicted that. It was an act of God, that’s what I think it was,” she added. “There was no way anyone could have predicted that. No way.”