Typhoon Danas crosses Taiwan, killing 2 and injuring more than 300
The typhoon lost intensity and was downgraded to a tropical storm as it moved into the Taiwan Strait on a forecast path to China.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CNN
32 minutes ago
- CNN
How the catastrophic Texas flooding unfolded, in maps and charts
The search for missing bodies continues along Texas' Guadalupe River after catastrophic and deadly flooding killed at least 95 people following a torrential downpour Thursday evening into early Friday. The death toll includes at least 27 from the all-girls Camp Mystic, a Christian summer camp nestled on the South Fork of the Guadalupe River, where flood risk was among the highest in the state, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. CNN is tracking updates in maps and charts. Here's what we know so far about how the disaster unfolded: The National Weather Service issued a flood watch early Thursday afternoon at 1:18 p.m. CT, that highlighted Kerrville, among other locations, as being at risk of flash flooding through the night into Friday. That watch forecasted 5 to 7 inches of rainfall for the event. A flash flood warning, upgraded from the earlier watch, was issued for parts of Kerr County at 1:14 a.m. CT on Friday. Then, a flash flood emergency warning was issued for Kerr County at 4:03 a.m. CT, followed by one specifically for Kerrville at 5:34 a.m. CT. Ultimately, the most deluged parts of Texas saw as much as 15 inches of rain, more than double what was forecasted the day prior. One gauge along the Guadalupe River, in Kerrville, shows the water levels hit 23.4 feet at 4:45 a.m. Friday morning, about 45 minutes before the warning specific to the town was issued. Water levels in that spot almost certainly crested above 23.4 feet, but the gauge didn't record data for 3 hours, between 4:45 a.m. and 7:45 a.m. CT, before picking back up its data measurement. At Camp Mystic, which is located more than 20 miles west of Kerrville in surrounding Kerr County, Texas, about 107 game wardens and an aviation group were trying to access the camp Friday morning, according to officials. Shortly after midday, they were able to enter the camp and start rescuing children. The floods ravaged miles and miles of Kerr County, including the towns of Kerrville, Ingram and Hunt, in addition to some of the summer camp locations along the river. As the storm receded into Friday, stories surfaced of families and homes lost in houses, RVs, AirBNBs and more. CNN's Michelle Krupa and Zoe Sottile share their stories here. FEMA maintains a database of flood zones throughout the country. It maps the regulatory floodways — the places that will flood first and are most dangerous — and the areas that will flood in extreme events. At least two of the summer camps along the Guadalupe River were in known floodways. Ten children and one counselor from Camp Mystic remain missing as of Monday afternoon. Everyone at Camp La Junta has been safe and accounted for, the camp announced Friday. – CNN's Angela Fritz contributed to this report.
35 minutes ago
These are the factors that contributed to the extreme Texas flooding
A "worst case scenario" of meteorological events combined with dryness and topography of the landscape in central Texas contributed to the weekend's extreme flash flooding event that killed dozens of people in the region, according to reports. On Friday, torrential rain pounded the region, causing the Guadalupe River in Kerr County to rise 26 feet in just 45 minutes -- the second-highest on record, officials said . This is what led to the flash flood emergency: The weather patterns "Extraordinary" rainfall rates of 2 to 4 inches per hour in some areas -- such as Kerr County and Mason County -- equated to up to 18 inches in some spots, according to measurements from the National Weather Service (NWS). "That volume of water falling over relatively short periods of time -- that's a disaster waiting to happen," Marshall Shepherd, director of the Atmospheric Sciences Program at the University of Georgia and former president of the American Meteorological Society, told ABC News. Atmospheric conditions in place over the Southern Plains at the time favored slow-moving thunderstorms, which increased the odds of heavy rain and flash flooding due to their ability to sit over the same area for hours. In addition, the region favors heavy rainfall events. The atmospheric conditions were further enhanced by an abundant amount of tropical moisture coming from several sources: the Gulf, monsoonal moisture from the eastern Pacific and remnant moisture from Tropical Storm Barry, which made landfall on the east coast of Mexico on June 29. While the weak system quickly dissipated as it tracked inland, its remnant circulation continued to quietly linger up north toward the Texas-Mexico border, bringing some tropical moisture from the Bay of Campeche up to Texas. An extremely high level of atmospheric moisture over the region provided ample fuel for persistent torrential rain and extreme totals. There were "some very clear meteorological signals," such as a tilted trough and a mesoscale convective vortex, that contributed to the extreme precipitation, Shepherd said. The mesoscale conductive vortex essentially spun the remnants of a tropical system, causing significant ascent or rising motion to activate that moisture into condensation and precipitation in an efficient manner, according to Shepherd. As a result, there were "very extreme" precipitable water values, which is the measure of how much water would contend to be rained out of a column. It's one of the "telltale signals" that meteorologists look for in flooding events, he noted. "Those are sort of the worst case ingredients, from a meteorological standpoint," Shepherd said. The region is prone to flash flooding The complex terrain of the hilly community exacerbated the emergency, Shepherd said. Texas Hill Country is often colloquially referred to as " Flash Flood Alley" because the weather and landscape in the south-central Texas region work together to produce rapid flood events, the Texas Water Resources Institute (TWRI) noted. Flash Flood Alley is known as one of the most flood-prone regions in the U.S. due to its high susceptibility to flash flooding with steep terrain, shallow soil and repeated high rainfall events. The Guadalupe River Basin is one of the three most dangerous regions in the country for flash floods, according to the Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority. The Gulf provides an infinite source of air over the region, making high rainfall intensities a common occurrence. In addition, places like Hunt and Kerr Counties are situated on a floodplain between tall, rugged hills that funnel any rainfall down into rivers and creeks below. In this event, the extreme rainfall funneled into the Guadalupe River, which led to the rapid rise in water levels. The region's rocky topography makes it especially prone to flash flooding, according to the TWRI. The type of clay-rich soil in the region contributes to the flash flooding because clay soils have low infiltration and trigger high water runoff once wet, it said. Drought Severe to exceptional drought conditions were prevalent for much of south-central Texas when the downpours came, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. Kerr County has been in drought since the beginning of 2025. Drought conditions can make areas more susceptible to flash flooding as the soil cannot absorb rainfall as efficiently. This exacerbated the higher flash flood risk that already existed in the region due to its rocky topography. "The landscape was probably quite dry, and so anything was falling was probably running off quite rapidly, in the same way that water would run off on a paved surface," Shepherd said. Messaging challenges While the threat of the flooding was communicated more than a day before the rain event began, the timing of the emergency -- during the middle of the night -- may have contributed to the high death toll. The Texas Department of Emergency Management activated state emergency response resources in anticipation of increased threats of flooding in parts of west and central Texas heading into the holiday weekend, it noted in a press release. In addition, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration included the flash flooding risk in its three-to-seven-day hazards outlook, according to Shepherd. Flash flood warnings, including the flash flood emergency -- the highest alert for flash floods -- are distributed by the NWS in the same manner as tornado warnings: via the national EAS and WEA alert systems. "There were indications days to hours in advance, but there's still questions about getting it across the goal line," Shepherd said. "Normalcy bias" may have played a role as well, since people in the region are used to receiving flood warnings, Shepherd added. "People perceive that they're used to these types of events, although their benchmarks in their minds might not prepare them for like an anomaly or a 'black swan' type of it," he said. While there are questions about cell phone service and access for a way to receive the NWS and other emergency alerts, NOAA Weather Radio All Hazards (NWR), which are battery powered and have better nationwide coverage reliability than cell service, are a long-standing and reliable alternative highly recommend by NWS and meteorologists across the country . NWR is a nationwide network of radio stations broadcasting continuous weather information directly from the nearest NWS office. It broadcasts official Weather Service warnings, watches, forecasts and other hazard information 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Every camper and camp -- as well as every person in the country -- should have a NOAA radio, ABC News Chief Meteorologist and Chief Climate Correspondent Ginger Zee said. "This is battery powered and will wake you from a dead sleep," Zee said. "The timely warnings from NWS that night can be programmed to go off and would wake folks and give them at least a few minutes, if not longer, to seek higher ground." With a NOAA weather radio, a flash flood warning would have blared around 1:14 a.m. local time, about three hours in advance of the catastrophic flooding, Zee said. The weekend flooding killed at least 94 people -- many of whom were campers and counselors from Camp Mystic, a Christian girls camp situated on the Guadalupe River. At least 11 campers are still unaccounted for, officials said on Monday. "This terrible tragedy highlights why policymakers need to continue making robust investments in science-based weather and climate models and forecasts, alongside investing in a robust local emergency alert system and disaster response and recovery," Rachel Cleetus, policy director and lead economist for the climate and energy program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, told ABC News.' "We won't be able to completely eliminate every risk, but we cannot let reckless cuts to critical agency functions, including NOAA and FEMA, put more people in danger especially as climate change fuels worsening disaster," Cleetus added.
The Hill
35 minutes ago
- The Hill
Deadly Texas floods leave officials pointing fingers after warnings missed
AUSTIN, Texas — Local, state and federal officials are all pointing fingers in the wake of the deadly Texas flooding, but one thing is certain: The warnings weren't heard by the people who needed them. After the catastrophic Independence Day floods that killed at least 90 across Central Texas, state and county officials told reporters that the storm had come without warning. But a wide array of meteorologists — and the Trump administration itself — has argued that those officials, as well as local residents, received a long train of advisories that a dangerous flood was gathering. The timeline of the floods on Friday, experts say, revealed a deadly gap in the 'last mile' system that turns those forecasts into life-saving action. That issue is particularly pronounced in Central Texas, where cell phones go off with National Weather Service (NWS) flash flood advisories practically every time there is a thunderstorm — and where limestone canyons split by countless creeks and punctuated by riverside campgrounds and vacation homes are particularly vulnerable to sudden flood. A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) timeline released over the weekend showed a drumbeat of steadily increasing warnings — something that is characteristic of flash floods, said John Sokich, former legislative director of the NWS staffers union. Whether a specific neighborhood or camp floods can come down to 'which creek basin the rainfall is going to fall, and 3 miles makes a complete difference,' Sokich said. So NWS forecasters, he said, put out region-wide warnings of potential flash floods, which they tighten as the danger develops. 'And then when it gets really bad, they put out the 'catastrophic flood levels,' messages, which is what they did for the situation in Texas.' 'The challenge there,' he added, 'was people receiving the information.' Meteorologists' warnings of potential flooding, which drew on NWS forecasts, began as early as Wednesday, when CBS Austin meteorologist Avery Tomasco warned that the dregs of Tropical Storm Barry had parked 'all this tropical fuel' over Central Texas. 'I hesitate to show you this because it's so outlandish,' Tomasco said, but the storm could produce 'five to 15 inches of rain somewhere in Central Texas. Again, I think that's pretty far-fetched, but you can't rule out something crazy happening when you have this kind of tropical air in place.' By sunset on the night before the floods, federal forecasters were warning that rainfall would 'quickly overwhelm' the baked-dry soil. By 1:14 a.m. local time, the NWS released the first direct flash flood warnings for Kerr County, which officials told The Texas Tribune should have triggered direct warnings to those in harm's way. Instead, beginning on the day of the flood, state and local officials insisted they had no idea the flood was coming. Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly said leaders 'had no reason to believe this was going to be anything like what has happened here, none whatsoever.' They were echoed the following day by Nim Kidd, the state's top emergency management official, who told reporters that forecasts 'did not predict the amount of rain that we saw.' That quote 'baffled' meteorologist Ryan Maue, who on X blamed Kidd for setting off 'a furious news cycle in which the National Weather Service was blamed for the tragic events because a forecast 2 days prior wasn't as extreme.' On Monday, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said that 'something went wrong' when Camp Mystic and other sleepaway camps alongside the region's rivers didn't receive warnings of the oncoming waters. 'Next time there's a flood,' Cruz told a Kerr County press conference on Monday, 'I hope we have in place processes to remove the most vulnerable from harm's way. But that's going to be process that will take careful examination of what happened.' Some — like Sokich — argued that one possibility is that after rounds of staff reductions, NWS offices that may have had enough staff to issue accurate predictions didn't have the personnel for potentially life-saving outreach. 'If you don't have the full staff, then you can't do that,' he said. 'People are just focusing on issuing the watches and warnings.' Such outreach, UCLA meteorologist Daniel Swain wrote on X, is 'one of the first things to go away when offices are critically understaffed.' On Sunday, Gov. Greg Abbott (R) told reporters that he would urge state lawmakers to focus on a better system of state warnings in the upcoming July special legislative session. One such system exists in other flood-prone basins, where gauges in a cresting river automatically send alerts to a network of river sirens, which sound alarms across the area. That's technology that Kerrville officials say they have needed for years. But locals 'reeled at the cost' of a county program, Kelly told PBS's 'Frontline,' and attempts to pay for it with state or federal funds failed. In 2018, during the first Trump administration, Kerr County and the Upper Guadalupe River Authority applied to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for about $1 million to build a flood warning system — and were denied, KXAN reported. This year, a bill that would have spent $500 million on a modern system of disaster warnings across the state passed the House but died in the Senate. One House member who voted against it, freshman state Rep. Wes Virdell (R), represents Kerr County. 'I can tell you in hindsight, watching what it takes to deal with a disaster like this, my vote would probably be different now,' Virdell told The Texas Tribune on Sunday, adding that he had objected to the measure's price tag. In 2020, with no prospect for paying for such a system, the county joined FEMA's Integrated Public Alert & Warning System, which sends out cell phone alerts when floods threaten. One problem with the text-based flood warnings — and with warnings in general — is that 'people don't understand what a flash flood is,' said Keri Stephens, a University of Texas professor who studies disaster communication. Her research has shown that in Texas, 'a lot of people are completely unaware that they're even at risk for flash floods. 'They don't understand how they happen. They don't understand what it means to experience a 20-plus foot rise in water in a short period of time — because they can't imagine and visualize what that looks like,' Stephens said. No technology is good enough to keep people safe on its own, she added. Disaster warnings have to plug into accurate forecasting on one side and a clear course of action on the other — and they have to be believed. Stephens' research found that the ubiquitous warning aimed at keeping motorists from crossing flooded rivers — 'Turn around, don't drown' — doesn't work for young adults. 'They don't think it'll happen to them,' Stephens said. Her research found that a better message — for those who don't believe that a foot of water can wash away a car — was 'Stay High and Dry,' which emphasizes the danger not to the driver but to the car's undercarriage. In a rural area, those disaster notifications can often be handled individually: a county emergency manager working the phones, or a campground texting its visitors, which can make the question of whether they go out in time dangerously arbitrary. Amanda Sue Jones, a woman camping beside the Guadalupe with her family, wrote on Facebook that she had received NWS notifications all night — but that only after it was clear from the rising water that they had to 'GTFO' did she receive a text from the campground telling her to seek higher ground. By then, Jones told CNN, it was too late for many. Her family took shelter at restrooms, where they met a man whose camper — with his family inside — had washed away in the time it took to go the bathroom. 'In those few moments, the waters just overtook that area where his family was,' Jones said. 'It was just so fast. It was unreal.' Sirens or not, a small rural county won't be able to make sure every camper heads for high ground in time, said Chad Berginnis, the head of the American Association of Floodplain Managers — making it incumbent on individuals and businesses to have their own evacuation plan. Even in areas without cell phone service — which is spotty across much of the Hill Country — Berginnis said there's a low-tech solution to situations like that one, Berginnis said: weather radios. 'If you're at a campground, your plan could say, 'Hey, if we have a, if we have a weather situation, then we'll have staff awake and monitoring the weather.' You don't have to invest in huge amounts of technology.' The crucial thing, Berginnis said, is that those systems have to be in place before 'flood amnesia' sets in. In 30 years of floodplain management, he said, he's learned that it only takes 'a couple years [before] people have forgotten the lessons and moved on.' 'I think we have a responsibility to those who lost their lives that we study this, understand and learn from it,' he added.
