Heavy rain and flooding swamp city of San Antonio, TX – two dead, scores rescued

 

May 25, 2013 – SAN ANTONIO, TX – The wet weather plaguing many parts of the U.S. this holiday weekend has turned fatal in sodden San Antonio. Two people are dead, and nearly two hundred more have been rescued as heavy rain has pummeled the Texas city, causing flash flooding. The majority of rescues were people trapped in their vehicles in low-lying areas of the city, San Antonio Fire Department spokesman Christian Bove told NBC News. Bove confirmed one fatality thus far, a 29-year-old woman who was trapped in her vehicle and tried to escape the rising water by climbing onto the car’s roof. She was washed away, and her body was found down the road against a fence. A man who had been trapped in his vehicle is unaccounted for. Weather Channel Meteorologist Nick Wiltgen said San Antonio received 12.16 inches of rain in the 24 hours ending at 11 a.m. Central Time on Saturday. That is just shy of the 24-hour record for the city of 13.35 inches in October 1998. –NBC News

U.S. loses major weather satellite: A satellite designed to track severe weather in the US, has failed on the eve of the 2013 Atlantic hurricane season. Experts fear it could not have happened at a worse time. The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said the satellite, which provides coverage for the entire US eastern seaboard, is relied upon to track hurricanes threatening cities along the coast. The NOAA gave a warning that this year’s hurricane season – the first since hurricane Sandy devastated the New York and New Jersey shorelines last October – is likely to be “extremely active.” The Atlantic-Caribbean hurricane season begins this week and lasts for six months. The NOAA has predicted as many as 13 to 20 tropical storms could threaten homes, with half of those likely to strengthen. The NOAA announced that a spare satellite had been activated while attempts are made to fix the failed one, but added there was currently “no estimate on its return to operations.” The organization’s three current Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) were built by Boeing and designed to last 10 years. The failed satellite, GOES-13, was launched in 2006. NOAA typically operates two GOES spacecraft over the country, overlooking the East and West coasts, plus one on-orbit spare. The satellites are fitted with technology enabling them to watch for clouds and developing storms. The first sign of trouble with GOES-13, the primary East coast satellite, emerged late last Wednesday when it failed to relay expected images, NOAA reports showed. If a second GOES should fail, NOAA would operate its remaining satellite to get a full view of the US every half-hour. The organization would also depend more on other information relayed by polar-orbiting weather satellites. –Independent UK