‘Above average' storm warning
THE US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued its forecast for this year's Atlantic hurricane season, saying it expected to see 13 to 19 named storms this year.
That would make for an above-average season and most likely not as active as 2024 ended up being. An average Atlantic hurricane season has 14 named storms, including seven hurricanes and three major hurricanes.
Billed as RM9.73 for the 1st month then RM13.90 thereafters.
RM12.33/month
RM8.63/month
Billed as RM103.60 for the 1st year then RM148 thereafters.
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The Star
6 days ago
- The Star
A Florida county leads the way with a high-tech 911 system that improves emergency response
NAPLES, Florida: When an emergency happens in Collier County, Florida, the 911 calls go to one of the most high-tech communications centers in the US, where callers can sent text and video from the scene to dispatchers. Moving to what's known as an NG911 - or Next Generation 911 - system is a journey Sheriff Kevin Rambosk and Bob Finney, the county's director of communication, have been on for much of the past decade. It's a long way from Feb. 16, 1968, when Alabama's then-House Speaker Rankin Fite made the nation's very first 911 call in Haleyville, Alabama, on a bright red, rotary-style landline telephone. That ceremonial call came just 35 days after AT&T announced plans to use 911 as a nationwide emergency number. Today, most calls to 911 originate with cellphones, with dispatchers in upgraded centers using geo tracking to get accurate geographic locations from callers. But the response time in an emergency depends on the type of technology being used at any of the 6,000 emergency communications centers in the U.S. that receive 911 calls. There is no uniform emergency system in the U.S., so individual cities, counties, states or geographic regions are responsible for operating their own 911 call centers. While some states have fully updated to NG911 systems, others are still using legacy 911 systems that rely on antiquated equipment. "We're just reminded in these last two weeks, with the flooding in Texas, just how important the work of 911 is,' said Michael Martin, CEO of RapidSOS, which provides infrastructure that passes critical data to emergency centers across the United States. The future is now for 911 The Collier County Sheriff's Office covers 911 calls from an area of about 2,030 square miles (5,258 square kilometers) that stretches from sandy beaches at the southernmost tip of the Gulf Coast on Florida's peninsula inland to the Everglades. It's a region that has been ravaged by hurricanes this century, including Hurricane Irma in 2017 and Hurricanes Ian and Milton most recently. That's why Sheriff Rambosk wanted a high-tech emergency operations center. "We just believe that when we can reduce the response time using technology, it will improve safety and survivability of those calling in,' said Rambosk, who has been sheriff since 2009. "And that's really what we're all about, keeping people safe and rescuing them when they need it.' Today 61 full-time employees and three part-timers staff two emergency operations centers around the clock. They rely on data that RapidSOS collects from connected buildings, devices, vehicles and even smart watches to send first responders to emergency scenes. The baseline data is provide free of charge to all 911 centers, Martin said. Mixing technology with emergency response As Hurricane Helene was tracking toward north Florida last September, forecasters were predicting it could hit Tallahassee as a major Category 3 storm. Officials in Leon County, which serves the state's Capitol and nearby counties on legacy 911 equipment, reached out to Collier County, some 430 miles (692 kilometers) to the southeast, to see if they could take over emergency calls if the storm knocked their center out. Helene moved to the east of Tallahassee, but Collier County was prepared to help if needed. "Because of the partnership with Rapid SOS, they were able to create a map to where not only did we see our own calls, but we could see exactly where the calls were coming in Tallahassee,' Finney said. Collier County has also partnered with Charleston, South Carolina, as a backup 911 center. Each region is fully prepared to take on 911 calls for the other in case their emergency system goes down for any reason. It's a similar story in North Carolina, where legislation in 2017 helped establish funding for a next generation 911 system, said Pokey Harris, who serves as president of the National Association of State 911 Administrators and executive director of the North Carolina 911 Board. Harris said Hurricane Helene provided validation for the upgraded system by being able to direct 911 calls from areas that were devastated by the storm to other parts of North Carolina that were not affected. "During Helene, if a citizen could reach a dial tone, even though their local 911 center may have been impacted because of infrastructure devastation, another center somewhere in the state could answer their call,' Harris said. No federal funding for next-generation systems Next Generation 911 systems aren't cheap. "There has been no federal funding for 911,' Martin, of RapidSOS said. "It has been in various draft formats as long as I've been doing this and it's never gotten through Congress.' There is also no federal oversight of 911, he said. "It's really quite remarkable how well 911 works despite those challenges," Martin said. "I think it's a testament to the people of 911, not the technology.' – AP
The Star
09-07-2025
- The Star
Texas floods: Misinformation across political spectrum sows confusion
A drone view of vehicles partially submerged in flood water following torrential rains that unleashed flash floods along the Concho River in San Angelo, Texas, US, on July 4, 2025, in this screen grab obtained from a social media video. — Patrick Keely via Reuters WASHINGTON: Following deadly floods in Texas, misinformation from both left- and right-wing users was roiling social media, with liberals baselessly blaming staffing cuts at US weather agencies for flawed warning systems and conservatives ramping up conspiracy theories. The catastrophic floods over the weekend have left more than a 100 people dead, including more than two dozen girls and counselors at a riverside summer camp, with rescuers racing on Tuesday to search for dozens of people still missing. Multiple left-leaning accounts on the platform X peddled the unfounded claim that staffing cuts at the National Weather Service (NWS) by President Donald Trump's administration had "degraded" its forecasting ability. While the NWS, like other agencies, has experienced deep staffing and budget cuts under the Trump administration, experts say its forecasters rose to the challenge despite the constraints. "There have been claims that (weather agencies) did not foresee catastrophic (Texas) floods – but that's simply not true," Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources, wrote on Bluesky. "This was undoubtedly an extreme event but messaging rapidly escalated beginning (around) 12 (hours) that flooded catastrophically had at least 1-2+ hours of direct warning from NWS." There were 22 warnings from the NWS for Kerr County and the Kerrville area, which experienced the worst flooding, according to a CBS News analysis. "This truly was a sudden & massive event and occurred at worst possible time (middle of the night). But (the) problem, once again, was not a bad weather prediction: it was one of 'last mile' forecast/warning dissemination," Swain wrote. Meanwhile, right-wing conspiracy theorists on social media falsely claimed that the government caused the flooding through cloud seeding, an artificial technique that stimulates rainfall. Multiple experts have said that such weather-modification technologies were not responsible for the Texas floods. The misinformation echoes past conspiracy theories, including claims that weather manipulation by the government caused Hurricane Milton – which struck Florida's Gulf Coast last year – and that cloud seeding efforts were behind last year's flooding in Dubai. 'Classic tale of misinformation' "False claims from both the left and right have spread widely on social media following the catastrophic floods in Texas," Sarah Komar and Nicole Dirks from the disinformation watchdog NewsGuard wrote in a report that debunked several falsehoods. "When extreme weather events occur, conspiracy theories about humans creating or controlling them often soon follow." Following natural disasters, misinformation often surges across social media – fueled by accounts from across the political spectrum – as many platforms scale back content moderation and reduce their reliance on human fact-checkers. Traditional media outlets were not immune to misinformation swirling on the Internet. "Like other disasters before it, the (Texas) floods had attracted fast-spreading misinformation and served as a warning about the vigilance required of journalists during emotionally charged news events," said the nonprofit media institute Poynter. Kerr County Lead , a local outlet, was forced to retract a false story about the miracle rescue of two girls who clung to a tree in the floods. The story first surfaced in social media posts that quickly went viral, but a local official said the reports were "100% inaccurate". "Like everyone, we wanted this story to be true, but it's a classic tale of misinformation that consumes all of us during a natural disaster," Louis Amestoy, Kerr County Lead's editor, wrote in a note to readers on Sunday. "Unfortunately, the story is not true and we are retracting it." – AFP
New Straits Times
08-07-2025
- New Straits Times
Hopes fade for Texas flood victims as death toll tops 96
KERRVILLE, Texas – Search teams plodded through muddy riverbanks and flew aircraft over a flood-ravaged central Texas landscape on Monday as hopes dimmed for finding more survivors among dozens still missing from a disaster that has claimed at least 96 lives, many of them children. Three days after a torrential predawn downpour transformed the Guadalupe River into a raging, killer torrent, a Christian girls' summer camp devastated by the flash flood confirmed that 27 campers and counsellors were among those who had perished. Ten girls and a camp counsellor were still unaccounted for, officials said on Monday, as search-and-rescue personnel faced the potential of more heavy rains and thunderstorms while clawing through tons of muck-laden debris. The bulk of the death toll from Friday's flooding was concentrated in and around the riverfront Hill Country town of Kerrville, including the ill-fated grounds of Camp Mystic. By Monday afternoon, the bodies of 84 flood victims – 56 adults and 28 children – were recovered in Kerr County, most of them in the county seat of Kerrville, according to the local sheriff. As of midday Sunday, state and local officials said 12 other flood-related fatalities had been confirmed across five neighbouring south-central Texas counties, and that 41 other people were still listed as missing outside Kerr County. The New York Times, one of numerous news media outlets publishing varying death tolls on Monday, reported that at least 104 people had been killed across the entire flood zone. 'ROUGH WEEK' AHEAD While authorities continued to hold out hope that some of the missing would turn up alive, the likelihood of finding more survivors diminished as time passed. "This will be a rough week," Mayor Joe Herring Jr said at a briefing on Monday morning. Camp Mystic, a nearly century-old Christian girls' retreat on the banks of the Guadalupe, was at the epicentre of the disaster. "Our hearts are broken alongside our families that are enduring this unimaginable tragedy," the camp said in a statement on Monday. Richard "Dick" Eastland, 70, Mystic's co-owner and director, died trying to save children at his camp from the flood, multiple media, including the Austin American-Statesman, reported. He and his wife, Tweety Eastland, have owned the camp since 1974, according to its website. "If he wasn't going to die of natural causes, this was the only other way, saving the girls that he so loved and cared for," Eastland's grandson, George Eastland, wrote on Instagram. MISHAP IN THE SKY Authorities lost one of their aviation assets on Monday when a privately operated drone collided in restricted airspace over the Kerr County flood zone with a search helicopter, forcing the chopper to make an emergency landing. No injuries were reported, but the aircraft was put out of commission, according to the Kerr County Sheriff's Office. National Weather Service forecasts on Monday predicted that up to 4 more inches of rain could douse Texas Hill Country, with isolated areas possibly receiving as much as 10 inches (25 cm). Allison Santorelli, a meteorologist with the NWS Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland, said the potential for renewed flooding was particularly heightened by the saturated condition of the soil and mounds of debris already strewn around the river channel. A flood watch was posted until 7 p.m. State emergency management officials had warned on Thursday, ahead of the July Fourth holiday, that parts of central Texas faced the possibility of flash floods based on National Weather Service forecasts. But twice as much rain as was predicted ended up falling over two branches of the Guadalupe just upstream of the fork where they converge, sending all of that water racing into the single river channel where it slices through Kerrville, City Manager Dalton Rice said. Rice said the outcome, the result of an unpredictable combination of circumstances, was unforeseen and unfolded in a matter of two hours. "Why didn't we evacuate? Well, evacuation is a delicate balance," he said in response to reporters' questions on Monday. "If you evacuate too late, you then risk putting buses, or cars, or vehicles or campers on roads into low-water areas, trying to get them out, which then can make it even more challenging." "It's very tough to make those calls, because what we also don't want to do is cry wolf." The chief meteorologist for commercial forecaster AccuWeather, Jonathan Porter, said authorities had ample time to move people to higher ground before the flood struck. Rice and other public officials, including Governor Greg Abbott, said the circumstances of the flooding, and the adequacy of weather forecasts and warning systems, would be scrutinised once the immediate situation was brought under control. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer on Monday asked a government watchdog to investigate whether budget cuts imposed by the Trump administration contributed to any delays or inaccuracy in forecasting the floods. US Senator Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, said there would be time to examine whether more could have been done to prevent the loss of life but that now was not the time for "partisan finger-pointing."
