Dr. Marc Siegel describes 'devastating' psychological impact of Texas floods
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Witness describes 'unbelievable' floods in New Mexico
A man who saw the flash flood that descended upon the New Mexico mountain community of Ruidoso, killing three people and damaging dozens of homes, described the scenes as "unbelievable." Tracy Haragan spoke to The Associated Press on Wednesday. (AP Video: Roberto E. Rosales)
Yahoo
2 hours ago
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Hundreds gather at high school stadium to honor the many lost to Texas deadly floods
KERRVILLE, Texas (AP) — Several hundred people gathered for a worship ceremony at a high school stadium in Texas on Wednesday evening to remember the at least 120 people who died in the catastrophic flash floods over the July Fourth holiday, as well the many still missing. 'Our communities were struck with tragedy literally in the darkness,' Wyatt Wentrcek, a local youth minister, told the crowd in the bleachers of Tivy Antler Stadium in Kerrville. 'Middle of the night.' During a series of prayers for the victims and the more than 160 people still believed to be missing in hard-hit Kerr County, which includes Kerrville, people in the crowd clutched one another and brushed away tears. Many attendees wore blue shirts with the school's slogan, 'Tivy Fight Never Die,' or green ribbons for Camp Mystic, the century-old all-girls Christian summer camp in Kerr County where at least 27 campers and counselors died. Officials said five campers and one counselor have still not been found. Ricky Pruitt, with the Kerrville Church of Christ, told the crowd that they gathered intentionally at a place where they had celebrated victories and experienced losses on the field. 'Tonight is very different than all of those nights," he said. The event was held as search crews and volunteers continued to scour miles along the Guadalupe River for the people still missing. In air boats, helicopters and on horseback, crews looked in trees and mounds below their feet, while search dogs sniffed for any sign of buried bodies. With almost no hope of finding anyone alive, searchers said they were focused on bringing the families of the missing people some closure. The floods are now the deadliest from inland flooding in the U.S. since 1976, when Colorado's Big Thompson Canyon flooded, killing 144 people, said Bob Henson, a meteorologist with Yale Climate Connections. Officials have been seeking more information about those who were in the Hill Country, a popular tourist destination, during the holiday weekend but did not register at a camp or a hotel and may have been in the area without many people knowing, Gov. Greg Abbott has said. Public officials in the area have come under repeated criticism amid questions about the timeline of what happened and why widespread warnings were not sounded and more preparations were not made. Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha has said those questions will be answered, but the focus now is on recovering victims. The governor called on state lawmakers to approve new flood warning systems and strengthen emergency communications in flood prone areas throughout the state when the Legislature meets in a special session that Abbott had already called to address other issues starting July 21. Abbott also called on lawmakers to provide financial relief for response and recovery efforts from the storms. 'We must ensure better preparation for such events in the future,' Abbott said in a statement. Local leaders have talked for years about the need for a flood warning system, but concerns about costs and noise led to missed opportunities to put up sirens. President Donald Trump has pledged to provide whatever relief Texas needs to recover, and is planning to visit the state Friday. Polls taken before the floods show Americans largely believe the federal government should play a major role in preparing for and responding to natural disasters. Catastrophic flooding is a growing worry. On Tuesday, a deluge in New Mexico triggered flash floods that killed three people. Although it's difficult to attribute a single weather event to climate change, experts say a warming atmosphere and oceans make these type of storms more likely. After the ceremony in Kerrville on Wednesday, children and families mingled on the field, and some students formed prayer circles. Licensed counselors and therapists were also on hand to meet with people. Andrew Brown, who was at the vigil to honor a Tivy High School soccer coach who died in the flooding, said he believes a warning system with a siren would be helpful. 'I'm sure there are things that could have been different, and I'm sure there will be going forward," he said. David Garza said he drove an hour and a half to the stadium to provide support for loved ones affected by the floods. 'I'm from here, and I was here in the '78 flood and the '87 flood,' Garza said. 'I just wanted to be a part of this." ___ Associated Press writers John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio, Jim Vertuno in Austin, Texas, and John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas, contributed to this report.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
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Climate change pushes Arizona into ‘uncharted territory' with deadly heat
Arizona broke a number of heat related records in 2024 and Phoenix experienced 113 consecutive days of 100 degrees or hotter, the longest run ever recorded. (Getty Images) In 2024, the max temperature in Phoenix sat at or above 100 degrees for approximately 30% of the year — and that non-stop consecutive heat has environmental advocates and doctors worried about the years to come as climate change continues to make the world and Arizona hotter. Last year saw Arizona break a number of heat related records and Phoenix experienced 113 consecutive days of 100 degrees or hotter, the longest run ever recorded. The next highest run was set in 1993 and was 76 days, the third longest run is from 2023 at 66 days. In fact, a number of the most recent heat-related records all come from more recent years. The top 10 for the most consecutive days with temperatures at or above 110 includes 2020, 2021 and 2022. The record was shattered in 2023, when Phoenix experienced 31 consecutive days of 110 degrees or higher heat. This year has already had a 17-day run of temperatures exceeding 100 degrees, including seven where highs were above 110. The records have also taken a grim toll. While 2024 was the hottest year on record for the state, there was a slight decline in the number of heat-related deaths from the record-breaking 2023, where 645 people lost their lives in Maricopa County due to the heat. Those 645 deaths in 2023 made up more than half of all heat-related deaths reported nationally, according to Centers for Disease Control data. Overall temperatures have been rising across the globe, contributing to what we are seeing in Arizona. The global temperature has risen by approximately 2 degrees Fahrenheit since 1880, but in Phoenix you can add another 5 degrees to that number due to the urban heat island effect. The urban heat island effect is when the temperatures in an urban area increase due to the heat retained by structures and ground coverings, lack of vegetation and other impacts of urbanization. That heat island also leads to other environmental effects, such as more and more days where pollution lingers in the atmosphere. A previous analysis of data from the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality showed that Phoenix in recent years has experienced more days where the level of ozone in the air exceeds health and safety standards. For example, in 2015, Phoenix experienced 33 exceedance days for the whole year. In 2022, the region experienced 53, a 60% increase. 'We are at the epicenter of this crisis in the United States and there is nothing that kills more in regards to global warming or extreme weather than heat,' Dr. Jack Tuber, a Phoenix pulmonologist and member of the Sierra Club said to the Mirror. On a hot Thursday evening when temperatures outside were a sweltering 103 degrees, local environmental advocates, students, physicians and more were gathering at South Mountain Community College to discuss the impacts of extreme weather. The event featured a large number of groups from the Sierra Club Grand Canyon Chapter to the Union of Concerned Scientists, and even religious leaders who have opened their doors to vulnerable populations who often find themselves endangered by extreme heat. The event, dubbed the 'People's Hearing' on extreme heat, featured representatives of Democrats Sen. Mark Kelly and Congresswoman Yassamin Ansari. State Sen. Priya Sundareshan, a Tucson Democrat and former attorney who focused on climate issues, also attended. While the event focused on the stories of those impacted by climate change and extreme weather, it also had another major goal: to implore policy makers to pay attention to the climate crisis and bring into focus concerns about President Donald Trump's plans to roll back environmental protections. Trump's head of the EPA has vowed to eliminate regulations meant to curtail pollution, fire staffers that serve overburdened areas and push EPA scientists to approve new chemicals, moves that former and current employees have begun to voice their concerns over. 'I'm actually horrified at the administration's planned rollbacks,' Vernon Morris, a climate scientist and Arizona State University professor. (Morris said at the event that he was speaking on behalf of himself and not the university.) Morris voiced concerns over rollbacks to agencies like the EPA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which scientists have warned could harm weather prediction models, leading to further harms and even deaths. 'There is no precedent for what we are experiencing today,' Dr. Ryan Glaubke, a paleoclimatologist and member of the Union of Concerned Scientists, told the audience. 'We are pushing the climate into uncharted territory.' Glaubke and other scientists who spoke all agreed that climate change is real, happening and that humans are largely responsible — observations that have consensus among the scientific community. However, how to go about addressing that crisis and helping those directly impacted by it is not as easy to answer. It takes less than 30 seconds of being exposed to an object that 130 to 140 degrees to get a second- or third-degree burn, according to Dr. Clifford Sheckter, a burn surgeon at the Regional Burn Center at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center in California. Sheckter is also the Burn Prevention Committee Chair for the American Burn Association and does health policy research focusing on the prevention and health economics of burn care. When the Mirror took the temperatures of common objects in Phoenix at midday in late June, temperatures regularly were dangerous. A sidewalk registered 136 degrees, the road was a blistering 146, a bike rack was 125 degrees, a mailbox clocked in at 136 and sand in a kid's playground reached 131 degrees. Those temperatures are already causing severe burns on people, particularly among the unhoused, those with drug and alcohol addiction issues and, as Sheckter pointed out, those with neuropathy. Neuropathy is seen largely in people with diabetes and it is a condition where a person loses sensation in their hands or feet. Sheckter said they have seen patients who don't realize they've burned their feet until it is too late. The Phoenix Police Department has also come under fire for ignoring the danger of extreme heat. In June 2024, two officers held a woman down on the hot pavement leading to severe burns — and it wasn't even the first time officers had caused similar injuries. For the family members of people who work in the heat, though, the dangers are known to them and they're only getting worse. 'Try to imagine the weight of the sun on your skin for 8 to 10 hours,' Jazmin Moreno, with the non-profit environmental advocacy organization Agave Community Threads, said to the crowd when speaking about her father who has worked in construction for the past 30 years. 'This isn't just weather, it is a climate crisis on full display… Climate change is real, and denying it won't make the heat go away.' For doctors like Sheckter and local pulmonologist Tuber, though, that crisis means an increase in certain types of cases and a new need for more education. For burns, it means getting information to parents on how to make sure their kids are safe on playgrounds, and that those who have neuropathy are paying close attention. 'These are ways we've been able to save countless lives, through prevention,' Sheckter said, although he admitted that, 'at the end of the day, there is no way you can force somebody to put their shoes on when they go outside.' But for Tuber, the challenge is a bit more difficult. Vector borne illnesses — those illnesses that are transmitted by mosquitoes, ticks and fleas — are seeing a rise due to climate change. The change in the earth's climate has allowed for the insects that carry these diseases to spread farther and wider than ever before, impacting new populations. Illnesses like malaria, Lyme disease and the West Nile virus have all seen their numbers increase, with climate change being cited as a major contributing factor. Add to Arizona specifically that more heat, less rain and more building also translates to an increase in coccidioidomycosis, also known as Valley Fever, and you have what Tuber calls an 'environmental disaster.' The increase in heat is also not helpful for people's lungs. 'The lungs are exposed, just like skin, to the ambient air temperatures, and if you are breathing drier, less moist air, you are going to be transpiring more humidity out from the lungs into the environment,' Tuber said, comparing it to like leaving a cut apple out. 'There is a lot of truth to the heat causing more trouble to the lung than if there was not so much heat.' This week, the state got its first monsoon storms of the season as the majority of the state is still under heat advisories and wildfires, made more aggressive by the drier conditions created by climate change, rage in the state. Arizona Mirror is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arizona Mirror maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jim Small for questions: info@
