May 29, 2016
By the AP
Houston — At least three people (click here) were still missing on Sunday after torrential rain in Texas and Kansas flooded rivers, washed out roads and left four people dead.
In Kansas, the search for a missing 11-year-old boy was suspended late Saturday because of darkness and fatigue of first responders, according to Wichita Fire Department battalion chief Scott Brown. The boy was swept away in a swollen creek on Friday night.
"We are more in body recovery mode than rescue," Brown said. Recovery efforts would resume at first light on Sunday, he said.
Near Austin in Travis County, Texas, officials planned to resume aerial searches on Sunday for two missing people whose vehicle was swept off a flooded roadway after the area got 9 inches of rain this week, said emergency services spokeswoman Lisa Block.
The threat of severe weather had lessened in Texas over the long Memorial Day holiday weekend and the focus now is on homes that could be flooded by slowly rising waters. Evacuation orders were issued on Saturday for parts of two Texas cities along the Brazos River near Houston.
"The skies are clear and things look good. But we want to make sure people understand that we are not out of the woods yet. We have to keep an eye on water that's coming through our bayou system," said Francisco Sanchez, a spokesman for the Office of Emergency Management in Harris County, where Houston is located....
There is no doubt this is the climate crisis. Previous records are interesting in trivial pursuit, but, they did not occur under the same climate. The CO2 amounts in 1895 were very different than today, however, it was within the industrial revolution that started anthropogenic global warming. It should be studied as to Earth's climate at that time and what may have resulted in such a short lived weather system.
May 29, 2016
By Elizabeth Chuck
35 Trillion Gallons (click here)
That's how much rain the Lone Star state has had over the past month, according to the National Weather Service in Fort Worth -- enough to cover the whole state up to nearly eight inches deep
16.72 Inches
While Texas as a whole has broken its record for the wettest May, many cities have topped centuries-old records, too. At Camp Mabry, a military installation in Austin, Texas, 16.92 inches of rain fell through May 28, beating the old record of 14.10 inches in May 1895.
Four Years
The length of the historic Texas drought that these floods have eased. The record rainfall has swelled rivers and lakes so much, they may not return to normal levels until July, the Associated Press reported.
