Flooding

A suspended federal project that promised to be a game-changer in protecting the public from worsening flooding is back in business today, with a team of scientists hard at work to make up for lost time.

The National Hurricane Center is watching a tropical system that's crossing Florida from the Atlantic, heading west to the gulf. The center says the storm has the potential to dump heavy rain and cause flash flooding in some places in Florida.

Intense rainstorms are becoming more frequent in most of the U.S. — though experts say where they occur and whether they cause catastrophic flooding is largely a matter of chance. More than 100 people died in Texas Hill Country over the weekend after 12 inches of rain fell in just hours. Last year, Hurricane Helene dumped more than 30 inches of rain on western North Carolina, where flooding killed 108. Experts say human-caused climate change is setting the stage because a hotter atmosphere holds more water. But it's impossible to predict where flooding will occur in any given year.

Former federal officials and outside experts have warned for months that President Donald Trump's staffing cuts to the National Weather Service could endanger lives. After torrential rains and flash flooding struck Friday in the Texas Hill Country, the weather service came under fire from local officials who criticized what they described as inadequate forecasts. Democrats wasted little time linking staff reductions to the disaster, which is being blamed for the deaths of at least 80 people. Former federal officials and experts have said Trump's indiscriminate job reductions at NWS and other weather-related agencies will result in brain drain that threatens the government's ability to issue timely and accurate forecasts. Trump said job cuts did not hamper weather forecasts.

Tropical Storm Debby didn’t look like trouble.No hurricane-force winds. No mass evacuations. Just forecasts, quietly urgent, calling for historic rainfall.Sarasota County officials weren’t alarmed. Days before landfall, the public works director — who two years earlier had called the county “one of the most flood-protected communities in the state, if not the nation” — went on vacation.On Aug. 5, the rain came. Then the flooding. Then the reckoning.

Phillippi Creek in Sarasota County won’t be dredged this hurricane season, no emergency permit issued.

Sanibel hired an engineering firm to inspect, repair and make upgrades to storm water system. Community input is vital.

Federal agencies hope to replenish funds for disaster recovery, which will certainly affect Florida.