When relying on technology in Flash Flood Alley lets you down

 Girls camp grieves loss of 27 campers and counselors in Texas floods that killed nearly 90 people

... Operators of Camp Mystic, a century-old summer camp in the Texas Hill Country, said they lost 27 campers and counselors, confirming their worst fears after a wall of water slammed into cabins built along the edge of the Guadalupe River. ...

... On Thursday the National Weather Service advised of potential flooding and then sent out a series of flash flood warnings in the early hours of Friday before issuing flash flood emergencies — a rare step that alerts the public to imminent danger.

Authorities and elected officials have said they did not expect such an intense downpour, the equivalent of months of rain.

Kerrville City Manager Dalton Rice said one of the challenges is that many camps are in places with poor cellphone service. ...

Why did the Guadalupe River flood so fast? What to know about Texas' 'Flash Flood Alley'

... The Guadalupe River and its surrounding areas in Texas Hill Country have historically been prone to flash flooding, earning the nickname "Flash Flood Alley." This area is particularly hazardous, as river levels increased rapidly at the end of last week and over the weekend. ...

 

Permitting the building of cabins along a river in a dangerous flood plain was just tempting fate.

They do things differently in Texas. 

 

Hurricane flooded electric cars going up in flames

17 in the wake of Hurricane Helene.

 

Trump strongholds in North Carolina and Georgia were hit hard by Hurricane Helene

 

Politico reports here:

Hurricane Helene hit especially hard in heavily Republican areas of Georgia and North Carolina — a fact that could work to Donald Trump’s disadvantage in the two swing states. ...

The parts of western North Carolina and eastern Georgia that were flooded by the monster storm are largely Republican. In 2020, he won 61 percent of the vote in the North Carolina counties that were declared a disaster after Helene. He won 54 percent of the vote in Georgia’s disaster counties. ...

State records show that nearly 40,000 absentee ballots were mailed to voters in the 25 North Carolina counties that were declared a disaster following Helene. Fewer than 1,000 have been returned.

Local fire official tells private chopper pilot not to rescue people in Western North Carolina after rescuing people or be arrested

 Helicopter pilot threatened with arrest after flying rescue missions in flood-ravaged NC 

“I can only imagine what the people were thinking. You’ve been stranded for 24, 36 hours. No way to speak with anyone. You don’t know what’s going on and you see a lifeline fly over and they keep going. I can only imagine what they were thinking.”

He added: “If I had to do it over again, I would have stopped and I would have rescued as many people until they decided they were going to arrest me.”

Officials in the town of Lake Lure could not immediately be reached by The Post on Wednesday. 

UPDATE:

 

Cloud seeding story too hot to handle for UAE authorities, Habibi bros where are you?

  UAE government unit denies cloud seeding took place before Dubai floods

 The NCM denial follows an earlier Bloomberg report, in which Ahmed Habib, a specialist meteorologist, had said that the Tuesday rains had stemmed partly from cloud seeding. Habib later told CNBC that six pilots had flown missions as part of regular protocol, but had not seeded any clouds. CNBC was not able to independently verify the reports.

https://twitter.com/habibi_bros

Dubai seeds clouds on the weekend, gets floods by Tuesday, but no, it was climate change

Dubai Grinds to Standstill as Cloud Seeding Worsens Flooding

 

The Gulf state’s National Center of Meteorology dispatched seeding planes from Al Ain airport on Monday and Tuesday to take advantage of convective cloud formations, according to Ahmed Habib, a specialist meteorologist. The NCM on Wednesday said the seeding had taken place on Sunday and Monday, and not on Tuesday. ... The latest storms followed heavy rains earlier this year, according to Habib at NCM. The seeding planes have flown seven missions, he added. “For any cloud that’s suitable over the UAE you make the operation,” he said.

Fearful of UAE speech laws, craven AP Obama never mentions that government cloud-seeding operations turbocharged Dubai rains leading to historic flooding and deaths

AP Obama can always be counted on to lie by omission.

 Storm dumps heaviest rain ever recorded in desert nation of UAE, flooding roads and Dubai’s airport

One couple, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to speak freely in a country with strict laws that criminalize critical speech, called the situation at the airport “absolute carnage.” 

But Bloomberg makes it the lede.

Dubai Grinds to Standstill as Cloud Seeding Worsens Flooding

Paragraph two:

The heavy rains that caused widespread flooding across the desert nation came after cloud seeding. The UAE has been carrying out seeding operations since 2002 to address water security issues, even though the lack of drainage in many areas can trigger flooding.

LA could do with a wash

 WEEKEND: Hurricane threatens flooding in Southwest...

LA winds up to 80mph!

FORECAST CONE... COMPUTER MODELS...

Incompetent lab inspectors from CDC completely missed rusting wastewater system at Fort Detrick Army biolab which spilled 2,000-3,000 gallons of contaminated water into Carroll Creek, USAMRIID response took 6 days until photo emerged

 Unsterilized laboratory wastewater from the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Maryland, spewed out the top of a rusty 50,000-gallon outdoor holding tank, the pressure catapulting it over the short concrete wall that was supposed to contain hazardous spills.

It was May 25, 2018, the Friday morning before Memorial Day weekend, and the tank holding waste from labs working with Ebola, anthrax, and other lethal pathogens had become overpressurized, forcing the liquid out a vent pipe.

An estimated 2,000-3,000 gallons streamed into a grassy area a few feet from an open storm drain that dumps into Carroll Creek — a centerpiece of downtown Frederick, Maryland, a city of about 80,000 an hour’s drive from the nation’s capital.

But as the waste sprayed for as long as three hours, records show, none of the plant’s workers apparently noticed the tank had burst a pipe. This was despite the facility being under scrutiny from federal lab regulators following catastrophic flooding and an escalating series of safety failures that had been playing out for more than a week. ...

Lab inspectors from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had apparently failed to recognize the plant was in such disrepair. The CDC offered no explanation of how the problems were missed, but after the incident it created a new policy and task force for overseeing labs’ wastewater decontamination systems.

Samuel Edwin, director of the CDC’s select agent regulatory program, did not grant an interview. Two years before the plant flooded and failed, the CDC had hired Edwin from USAMRIID, where he had spent eight years as the biological surety officer and responsible official in charge of making sure USAMRIID’s labs complied with federal regulations.

The whole story is a comedy of incompetence which would be funny if it weren't so serious, here.

400k without power in California

 

 

... hurricane-force winds ...

 

The storms won’t be enough to officially end California’s ongoing drought but they have helped.

 

June 2021 to date is 2nd rainiest June ever in Grand Rapids, MI, and one of just 23 months since 1892 with 8 inches of rain or more, ranking 14th so far

June 2021 to date is the 14th rainiest month in Grand Rapids, MI, since 1892:

 

Jun 1892: 13.22

Sep 1986: 11.85

Apr 2013: 11.10

May 2001: 10.01

Oct 2017:  9.69

May 2000: 9.59

Sep 2008:  9.54

Sep 1981:  9.52

May 2004: 9.29

Sep 1961:  9.15

Jul 1992:   8.83

Aug 1987: 8.46

Jul 1950:   8.42

 

Jun 1-26, 2021: 8.40

 

Oct 1954: 8.32

Apr 1909: 8.29

May 1981: 8.29

Jun 1967: 8.21

Sep 1993: 8.20

Sep 1915: 8.11

Jul 1994: 8.07

Jun 2010: 8.04

Jun 1928: 8.03.

 

Among the 23 months with 8 inches of rain or more in Grand Rapids, MI, since 1892, June 24-26, 2021 stands out as one of just five 2-3 consecutive day rain events with 5.5 inches or more:

May 10-11, 1981: 6.51 inches of rain

Sep 9-11, 1986:    6.43

 

Jun 24-26, 2021:  6.17

 

May 14-16, 2001: 5.97

Jul 5-7, 1994:       5.54.

 

74% of the 23 months with 8 inches of rain or more in GR occurred after 1960, consistent with the higher rainfall trend generally in the graph below.

 

The June 2021 event caused a run on portable submersible pumps needed by homeowners to evacuate pooling water in low areas and basements due to saturated ground. Flood warnings remain in effect for the area through Monday.

 

Even so, Grand Rapids is still running over 2 inches behind on mean rainfall year-to-date.

 

June 26, 2021 ranks 7th for daily maximum rainfall on a single day in June since 1892 at 2.81 inches.

 

The most rain ever to fall on a single day in Grand Rapids is 4.22 inches, occurring on June 5, 1905 and again on August 19, 1939. Those extreme events are associated with the hotter, dryer pre-1960 half of the graph.

 

Mean annual daily maximum precipitation in GR is 2.27 inches, with June ranking the highest month at 1.29, followed by September at 1.26.

 

 

Flood watches, flood warnings, and rain, oh my!

Heat watches, heat warnings, and wind! Oh my!

Indirect deaths from hurricanes from 1963-2012 numbered 1,418 but Maria in Puerto Rico alone caused 2,911?

My mother died of old age related heart failure two days after Hurricane Gustav made landfall in Louisiana in 2008:

48 deaths in the state of Louisiana were blamed on Hurricane Gustav. Five were due to falling trees, two due to a tornado and the rest were indirect deaths.

My mother wasn't counted among the 41 indirect deaths in Louisiana, for the main reason that she died in a different state.

But . . .

Hurricane Fatality Reports Leave Out Thousands of Indirect Deaths, According to New Study:

Looking at 59 hurricanes in the Atlantic Basin from 1963 through 2012, the study found that those systems killed a combined 1,803 people directly – by forces like flooding and airborne debris that were caused by the storm itself. But there were also a slew of lingering impacts that proved deadly in those storms, which caused 1,418 "indirect" deaths, according to the findings. ... Nearly half of the indirect deaths attributed to these 59 hurricanes were heart attacks, according to the study's data. Automobile accidents were also a major threat to life, whether the crashes occurred during evacuation or after the storm.

So we're supposed to believe tonight that about 2,911 (2,975-64) Puerto Ricans died indirectly in consequence of one storm (Maria) over the next six months according to the new math of George Washington University and Harvard University when over the course of nearly 50 years' worth of hurricanes indirect deaths for all storms combined came to just 1,418.

Sure we are.

Meanwhile the US east coast floods, but it's sunny and warm in Grand Rapids

Somebody's bad weather means good weather some place else.

One woman killed, another missing as storms deluge eastern U.S.:

"More than 26 million Americans are under a flood watch this morning, as severe weather grips the eastern U.S. for a fourth straight day. Beginning Wednesday, the storm will start to be felt further north, especially in New York. The heavy rain is expected to last through the weekend and possibly into next week. More than a foot of rain has fallen in parts of Maryland and Baltimore County is having its wettest July on record." 

Laugh of the Day: "Maybe this will chase all the Katrina refugees back to New Orleans"

Seen here in the comments.

Stupid, ignorant and blind liberal buys home in 100-year flood plain in Troy, NY, blames 100-year old 30-foot river wall (doh!), racism, capitalism, classism and climate change, not herself when she floods

I'm not making this up. She admits it.

Where else but in The Nation, here:

Troy floods. It has since before the Dutch arrived. I didn’t know this when I bought my house. I bought it because the chiming, rippling Poesten Kill canal runs through the backyard; because it has rusty old tin ceilings; and because I wanted to be a member of a vibrant, diverse urban neighborhood that comes together in summer evenings. ... When I realized that the property was in a floodplain, I hesitated and asked around. Friends, real-estate agents, and neighbors assuaged my fears: It’s a 100-year floodplain, they said—and look at the height of those canal embankments! You’ll be fine. ... We weren’t legally required to have flood insurance, and we couldn’t find enough money in the budget for it anyway. So we decided that we would take our chances. ... 

Obama interrupted his vacation yesterday to fundraise for Hillary, but to oversee Louisiana flooding not so much

The Boston Globe didn't even bat an eye.

Tens of thousands of homes are flooded out in Louisiana, but your president has to be a Republican before the news media give a shit

Rod Dreher can only wonder here.

Hey Rod! The media only care when the poor blacks get flooded out. You working and middle class people don't count. And you don't have an advocate in the White House. Brownie is only for the rich (and for the poor only on paper).

As usual the UK Daily Mail screws it up, shows old Hurricane Sandy loop from 2012 hitting New York, calls it Joaquin

You've got the wrong loop, fellas. Joaquin is headed out to sea, as your own graphic shows.

Video here, where they also report:

"Hurricane Joaquin, however, has become less of a threat to the United States as forecasts show the storm curving into the Atlantic and weakening in the upcoming days." 

Imagine that! Joaquin "has become less of a threat" even though they show video of it slamming into Staten Island! The damn thing's headed toward Bermuda you morons!

You can always count on The UK Daily Mail to cover a story, you just can't count on it to get it right.

I hereby nominate it for A Grauniad.

Senate Democrats to mount fourth filibuster to block funding of Dept. of Homeland Security before it runs out of money

Here's the lede from Politico:

Late Monday afternoon, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will force the fourth vote in three weeks on a bill to fund the massive agency that protects Americans from terrorists, floods and incursions across the borders. Senate Democrats will almost certainly block it again.