Death toll rises in Texas with 173 still missing
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Texas, flash flood
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A retired nurse, her son and a family friend say they were lucky to survive last week's flash floods in Texas that killed more than 100 people, including many summer campers.
Viral posts promoted false claims that cloud seeding, a form of weather modification, played a role in the devastation. Meteorologists explain it doesn't work that way.
When the precipitation intensified in the early morning hours Friday, many people failed to receive or respond to flood warnings at riverside campsites known to be in the floodplain.
Over just two hours, the Guadalupe River at Comfort, Texas, rose from hip-height to three stories tall, sending water weighing as much as the Empire State building downstream roughly every minute it remained at its crest. The force of floodwater is often more powerful and surprising than people imagine.
Follow for live updates in the Texas flooding as the death toll rises to 120, as rescue operations start to shift to recovery phase
Q: Is it true that if President Donald Trump hadn’t defunded the National Weather Service, the death toll in the Texas flooding would have been far lower or nonexistent? A: The Trump administration did not defund the NWS but did reduce the staff by 600 people.
Renee Smajstrla, a 8-year-old straight-A student from Ingram, Texas, who had played a role in her school’s production of “The Wizard of Oz,” was one of the victims who died in the flash floods at Camp Mystic, her family said.
Texas flash floods prompted Kesha to cancel her concert, prioritizing fan safety while promising to honor tickets for a rescheduled show the next night.