Texas, flash flood
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After several days of storm clouds, the end of the work week should provide more sun before rain chances return. Dallas faced flash flood warnings for the second day in a row Wednesday, but rainfall totals weren’t quite as high as the day before.
"Let's put an end to the conspiracy theories and stop blaming others," Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller said in a statement.
14hon MSN
"There has been a lot of misinformation flying around lately, so let me clarify: the Texas Department of Agriculture has absolutely no connection to cloud seeding or any form of weather modification," Miller said in a statement.
"A lot of the weather forecast offices now are not operating at full complement of staff," said the former lead of NOAA.
Texas leads the country in flood deaths. Steep hills, shallow soils and a fault zone have made Hill Country, also called "flash flood alley," one of the state's most dangerous regions.
Texas Hill Country is no stranger to extreme flooding. In the rugged, rolling terrain it’s known for, heavy rains collect quickly in its shallow streams and rivers that can burst into torrents like the deadly flood wave that swept along the Guadalupe River on July 4.
The White House is defending the National Weather Service and accusing some Democrats of playing politics in the wake of devastating floods in Texas.
Some regions in the mid-Atlantic are also facing risks of flooding. On Sunday, Tropical Storm Chantal flooded parts of North Carolina, where more than 10 inches of rain fell near the Chapel Hill area. The Haw River, near Bynum, North Carolina, crested to nearly 22 feet, the highest crest on record there, as a result of those heavy rains.
There was little indication of how torrential the Texas downpours would become before dawn. At least 27 people were killed, many of them children at Camp Mystic.