FEMA, Texas
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Texas officials promise to address flood warnings
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More than 111 people have died across six counties after flash flooding from heavy rain began affecting the state last week.
Crissy and Avi Eliashar bought their home in Jonestown, Texas, 13 years ago. They never had a problem with flooding until water washed away their home. Like many victims of the Texas flood, they don’t have flood insurance to help cover the losses.
As the Guadalupe River swelled from a wall of water heading downstream, sirens blared over the tiny river community of Comfort — a last-ditch warning to get out for those who had missed cellphone alerts and firefighters going street-to-street telling people to get out.
Blistering sun and July heat and humidity will provide challenges for recovery and cleanup efforts in the aftermath of the Guadalupe River flood disaster, AccuWeather meteorologists say.
Viral posts promoted false claims that cloud seeding, a form of weather modification, played a role in the devastation. Meteorologists explain it doesn't work that way.
Q: Is it true that if President Donald Trump hadn’t defunded the National Weather Service, the death toll in the Texas flooding would have been far lower or nonexistent? A: The Trump administration did not defund the NWS but did reduce the staff by 600 people.
Texas bears witness to a terrible tragedy, and citizens soon raise questions. Could the loss of life have been prevented or mitigated? Who, if anyone, bears responsibility? Those in power respond with “Now’s not the time” or point fingers at other authority figures.
This is false. It is not possible that cloud seeding generated the floods, according to experts, as the process can only produce limited precipitation using clouds that already exist.
At Camp Mystic, a Christian summer camp in Hunt, Texas, where officials are grieving the loss of 27 children and counselors, belongings of the young campers were strewn about the flooded floors of a dormitory, while other items, including a pink backpack and a Camp Mystic T-shirt, were found along the bloated Guadalupe River, photos show.