Severe flooding swept South Texas and cities across the border in Mexico on Thursday, as half a year’s rainfall drenched the region in less than two days. Officials warned of more rain on Friday and shut schools on the U.S. side. Thunderstorms brought 10 to 15 inches of rain to the parts of Texas where flash flood warnings were in effect, said Geoffrey Bogorad, a senior forecaster at the National Weather Service office in Brownsville. As much as four more inches were expected to fall, he said, as the Weather Service warned of more flash floods on Friday. The rain has flooded homes and roads and prompted at least nine school districts in the Rio Grande Valley to cancel classes on Friday. Multiple cities in South Texas this week saw record amounts of rain for late March, with 12 inches falling in Harlingen, and 11 in McAllen, during a 24-hour period, Mr. Bogorad said. The semiarid region along the border with Mexico usually receives about 25 inches annually. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT “This is a particularly dangerous situation,” the Weather Service said in a statement late Thursday, adding that the flash flooding was life-threatening and the damage could be catastrophic. “Do not attempt to travel unless you are fleeing an area subject to flooding, or under an evacuation order.” The storms have also soaked Mexico. The weather authorities there warned late Thursday of winds of up to 50 miles per hour overnight, with heavy rain and some hail expected in the border states of Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon. Thunderstorms began dousing South Texas on Wednesday. Meteorologists warned of heavy rainfall and flash flooding as they observed another round of thunderstorms on Thursday. By the afternoon, the storm had flooded homes in McAllen and damaged buildings with winds a strong as 70 m.p.h. Images on social media showed highways and access roads in South Texas and Mexico flooded with up to four feet of water. The police also said that a tornado had touched down in Edcouch on Thursday, though no damage was reported, according to Mr. Bogorad. Water rescues were taking place late Thursday in La Feria as meteorologists declared a flash flood emergency, urging residents to seek higher ground immediately. Many of the water rescues were from cars getting stuck in rising waters, Mr. Bogorad said. There were no reports of injuries. “I don’t recall seeing this type of rainfall in March in deep South Texas,” he said. “This is a pretty substantial widespread event.” Flash flood warnings were active in Brooks, Cameron, Hidalgo, Kenedy, Starr and Willacy counties on Thursday night and expected to last into Friday morning. A warning is issued when a flash flood is imminent or occurring and residents should move to high ground. School districts in Texas near the border, including those in Donna, Hidalgo, Mission, McAllen, Mercedes, Pharr, Progreso, San Benito and Weslaco announced that they were canceling classes on Friday, citing the weather. South Texas College also said that it would close all campuses on Friday. A flood watch, which signals that flooding is possible, was in effect early Friday for more than 5.4 million people in South and Southeast Texas and southern Louisiana.

At least four people died and hundreds of others were rescued in flooding in South Texas and Mexico after more than 20 inches of rain fell near the border on Thursday and Friday. Three deaths were confirmed in a local disaster declaration by a judge in Hidalgo County, which is about 150 miles southwest of Corpus Christi. The identities of those who died were not immediately known, officials said. A fourth person drowned in Reynosa, a city in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, which borders Hidalgo County, state officials said. Parts of Hidalgo County got 14 inches of rain, which caused “significant property damage,” county officials said. The rain in Southern Texas, about a half-year’s worth in two days, had subsided by Friday evening. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Officials in the nearby city of Harlingen, which recorded 21 inches of rain, said on Friday that emergency responders had rescued more than 200 residents and that hundreds more were awaiting rescue. In Tamaulipas, people were picked up by boats, rescued from roofs and carried through waist-high waters, according to photographs from the state government and the state’s spokeswoman for public security. Large buses were fully submerged in water. “A lot of rain fell in a few hours,” the spokeswoman, Blanca Zumaya Escobedo, said. She added that the places in Tamaulipas most affected were the cities of Reynosa and Rio Bravo. The people of Primera, Texas, a city just northwest of Harlingen, are used to preparing for bad weather events, Victor, a resident, explained. Southern Texas has experienced several mass flooding events in recent years.. “Seeing the water was bringing back all of those emotions, anxiety, kind of dread that your home would be underwater again,” said Victor, who declined to provide his last name. “It’s just a feeling that you can’t shake.” Over the next several days, the rains were expected to move northeast toward Mississippi and Arkansas, according to the National Weather Service.

A post from Elon Musk last month trumpeted a supposedly startling discovery by his team of government cost-cutters: The Federal Emergency Management Agency had provided $59 million to house undocumented immigrants in New York City. The money, he declared, was “meant for American disaster relief and instead is being spent on high end hotels for illegals!” But if Mr. Musk’s goal was to funnel more FEMA money to disaster aid, the fallout from his declaration had the opposite effect. A pair of Trump administration orders, issued soon after the Feb. 10 social media post, aimed to block any agency money from helping undocumented immigrants and “sanctuary” jurisdictions protecting them left FEMA staff without sufficient guidance about how to proceed, effectively freezing payments on billions of dollars in disaster grants, according to two people briefed on the process and an internal document viewed by The New York Times. While the freeze did not stop aid going directly to disaster survivors, it has disrupted payments to states, local governments and nonprofits, with ramifications being felt across the country. In Florida, a nonprofit that helps hurricane survivors find housing and other services noticed its promised FEMA payments stopped coming, raising fears that it will have to trim operations. In southeastern Michigan, communities hit by devastating floods two years ago are waiting for federal money to cover the cost of rebuilding. And in Helene-ravaged western North Carolina, tiny Warren Wilson College, a liberal arts school that specializes in environmental and climate science, has been hoping to hear in recent weeks about an application for aid to repair damaged roofs and clear debris from research fields, but has heard nothing. “There’s a deep sadness when walking through all that debris, knowing all that was lost,” said Rosemary Thurber, a 22-year-old student at the college whose studies have been disrupted. She said that she and her fellow students were “losing faith in our federal government.” The funding freeze illustrates the extraordinary power of Mr. Musk, the world’s wealthiest man, who has increasingly pointed his Department of Government Efficiency at exposing funding that benefits undocumented immigrants and whose demands regularly prompt responses from senior government officials. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT In this case, Mr. Musk’s 5:03 a.m. post on X, the social media platform he owns, was followed hours later by a memo from Cameron Hamilton, the acting head of FEMA, saying the agency had stopped payments under a variety of grant programs, and given DOGE “full system access to our financial management system.” Nine days later, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, whose agency includes FEMA, signed the first of two agency orders that took aim at migrant funding and effectively spread the freeze across almost all of the agency’s grants. After The New York Times submitted a list of detailed questions about the freeze on Monday, Ms. Noem on Tuesday signed a memo authorizing agency staff to exempt certain grants from the immigration-related orders, according to a person briefed on the change. It is not clear when or how quickly FEMA will go about releasing the money, and the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to The Times’s questions. A representative for the White House and DOGE did not respond to questions this week. The FEMA press office said in a separate statement last week that it attributed to an unnamed homeland security official: “FEMA is taking swift action to ensure the alignment of its grant programs with President Trump and Secretary Noem’s direction that U.S. taxpayer dollars are being used wisely and for mission-critical efforts.” The freeze has played out against the backdrop of widespread upheaval at the disaster relief agency, highlighted by Ms. Noem’s assertion during a Monday cabinet meeting that “We’re going to eliminate FEMA.” Ms. Noem’s office has directed staff to develop a plan to disband the agency, according to a person familiar with internal deliberations who was not authorized to discuss the matter in public. It is not clear what government agencies, if any, would take over FEMA’s role delivering aid to communities hit by disasters. Mr. Trump has mused about returning those duties to the states, or perhaps having the Defense Department carry more responsibility for responding to disasters. In the short term, however, many communities that see FEMA grants as a lifeline are still waiting. “There are projects beyond our ability to address on our own,” Damián J. Fernández, the president of Warren Wilson College, said earlier this month on a campus still covered in debris from the September storm, his voice breaking. “We have followed the rules. But the system is not working.” One storm leads to another FEMA’s existential crisis arguably began last fall, when Hurricane Helene killed more than 100 people in North Carolina and damaged more than 73,000 homes. The destruction was shocking, especially in a region not accustomed to hurricanes, and quickly became part of the presidential campaign. Within a week of the hurricane reaching North Carolina, FEMA had provided more than $45 million in disaster relief and sent more than 1,500 personnel, according to the agency. But as survivors struggled to regain access to basic services, many concluded that FEMA was failing to do enough. That message was amplified by Mr. Trump and Mr. Musk, who began criticizing FEMA for spending its money to house illegal immigrants rather than help hurricane survivors. “Kamala spent all her FEMA money, billions of dollars, on housing for illegal migrants,” Mr. Trump claimed at a rally soon after the storm, referring to Kamala Harris, then the vice president and his rival in the presidential race. Mr. Trump appeared to be referring to the Shelter and Services Program. Congress approved it under the Biden administration, directing FEMA to run a program for housing migrants who entered the United States and were released by federal officials. Congress gave the program $650 million last year for cities, states and nonprofits, but Mr. Trump’s comments were inaccurate. FEMA’s spending on migrants does not mean FEMA has less money to spend on disaster survivors. The money for migrants comes from the budget of Customs and Border Protection, not out of FEMA’s budget. Money for disaster survivors comes directly from Congress. There is no overlap between those two funds. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Soon after his return to the White House, Mr. Trump made Mr. Hamilton acting FEMA director. A former Navy SEAL and congressional candidate who campaigned on an anti-illegal immigration message, Mr. Hamilton did not have experience running a state or local emergency management agency. DOGE members arrived at the agency’s downtown Washington headquarters in early February to begin going through contract and grant payments. Then came Mr. Musk’s post. “The @DOGE team just discovered that FEMA sent $59M LAST WEEK to luxury hotels in New York City to house illegal migrants,” Mr. Musk wrote, exaggerating the quality of hotel rooms that were used. He added that FEMA had in his view violated an executive order from Mr. Trump, which ordered the agency to pause money supporting undocumented migrants. “A clawback demand will be made today to recoup those funds,” he wrote.

Last year was the hottest on record, and global average temperatures passed the benchmark of 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial times for the first time. Simultaneously, the growth rate of the world’s energy demand rose sharply, nearly doubling over the previous 10-year average. As it turns out, the record heat and rapidly rising energy demand were closely connected, according to findings from a new report from the International Energy Agency. That’s because hotter weather led to increased use of cooling technologies like air-conditioning. Electricity-hungry appliances put a strain on the grid, and many utilities met the added demand by burning coal and natural gas. All of this had the makings of a troubling feedback loop: A hotter world required more energy to cool down homes and offices, and what was readily available was fossil-fuel energy, which led to more planet-warming emissions. This dynamic is exactly what many countries are hoping to halt through the development of renewable energy and the construction of nuclear power plants. Put another way, the I.E.A. estimated that if 2024’s extreme weather hadn’t happened — that is, if weather was exactly the same in 2024 as in 2023 — the global increase in carbon emissions for the year would have been cut in half. It’s not all bad news: Increasingly, the global economy is growing faster than carbon emissions. “If we want to find the silver lining, we see that there is a continuous decoupling of economic growth from emissions growth,” said Fatih Birol, the executive director of the agency. We’re bringing this newsletter to you on Monday, instead of our usual Tuesday, to coincide with the release of the I.E.A. report. Here are five takeaways from last year’s energy trends. We’ll be back in your inbox on Thursday. Extreme heat helped drive global demand A major factor that raised global electricity demand last year was extreme heat, particularly heat waves in the U.S., China and India, the report found. Last spring, temperatures in New Delhi hit 126 degrees Fahrenheit, and temperatures in northern China broke records. All that added load had consequences, the I.E.A. found. These temperature effects drove about a fifth of the overall increase in demand for electricity and natural gas. Other electricity-intensive sectors grew in 2024. For example, data-center capacity grew by about 20 percent, mostly in the U.S. and China. High temperatures led to burning more coal Renewables, like solar and wind, are not that good at handling large, sudden upticks in electricity demand during heat waves. And they’re still not being deployed fast enough to meet global goals to triple renewable capacity by 2030. To meet urgent demand for electricity and help people avoid heat stress, some countries burned coal to help power air-conditioners and other cooling technologies. That led overall coal demand to increase by 1 percent last year to reach a record. The agency’s report found that the entire increase in coal demand could be explained by extreme temperatures. China remained the world’s biggest global coal consumer, burning 40 percent more coal than the rest of the world combined. Global electricity demand jumped In 2024, global energy demand grew by a little over 2 percent, almost twice as much as the average annual increase over the previous 10 years. This trend held across the board: Oil, natural gas, coal, renewables and nuclear all had an uptick in demand. Most of the global growth was concentrated in nations with emerging and developing economies, led by China and India. The numbers were even up in the European Union, where energy demand has largely not grown since 2017, with a post-Covid rebound year being the exception. The result of all this growth? Once again, energy-related carbon emissions reached a record in 2024. The I.E.A. estimated last fall that global carbon-dioxide emissions will peak in the next few years, then fall by 3 percent by 2030 under current national policy commitments. Global emissions would need to fall by 43 percent by 2030 in order to keep global warming below the 1.5-degree Celsius threshold established in the 2015 Paris Agreement, according to the U.N. The temperature goal is seen as increasingly unattainable by scientists and policymakers. Renewables and nuclear are growing About 80 percent of new electricity generation came from renewables and nuclear least year, and renewables accounted for almost a third of total electricity generation. Solar installations led the charge. In the United States, solar and wind electricity overtook coal for the first time. Global carbon emissions would have been 7 percent higher last year without clean technologies like solar, wind, nuclear, electric cars and heat pumps, the report found. For the first time, oil dipped below 30% of global energy demand Growth in oil demand continued to slow last year, with factors including consumers’ buying electric vehicles and ditching gas-powered cars. Last year, just two categories accounted for virtually all of the growth in oil demand: Aviation and shipping, and plastics. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Plastics have become an increasingly important part of oil companies’ growth plans as cars and trucks go electric and other sectors use less oil. Oil is a key material in plastics manufacturing.

Two wildfires, each greater than 2,000 acres, more than doubled in size on Sunday and raged uncontained in Polk County, N.C., after residents were ordered to evacuate among warnings of dire conditions. At 8:20 p.m. on Saturday, the North Carolina Department of Public Safety announced a mandatory evacuation for parts of the county. It was not immediately clear how many people were affected by the evacuation order. Officials warned of dangerous conditions, saying on social media that “visibility in the area will be reduced and roads/evacuation routes can become blocked; if you do not leave now, you could be trapped, injured, or killed.” As of Sunday evening, the North Carolina Forest Service had reported four active fires in the county. The largest two — Black Cove, which grew on Sunday to 2,076 acres, and Deep Wood, which also grew, to 2,545 acres — were zero percent contained. Both fires were burning in timber on steep terrain on a mix of state-owned and private land in the Green River Gorge, according to the state’s Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. Nearly 250 firefighting personnel from across North Carolina and other states were working to prevent the fires from spreading to neighborhoods and structures, the department said. Kellie Cannon, a spokeswoman for the county, said on Sunday afternoon that the Black Cove and Deep Woods fires “are coming close to meeting and they are separated by a road.” She added that a code red air quality alert was in place for the county “because the smoke is very dense.” The alert means that the air is unhealthy for anyone exposed to it. Polk County, in the western part of the state, is home to about 20,000 people. The Forest Service had a statewide burn ban in effect, with the agency announcing that “under North Carolina law, the ban prohibits all open burning in the affected counties, regardless of whether a permit was previously issued.” The threat of wildfires extended into South Carolina, where Gov. Henry McMaster declared a state of emergency in an effort to combat a wildfire known as the Table Rock fire in Pickens County. That blaze ignited on Friday in the Blue Ridge Mountains, and spread over 1,300 acres by Sunday evening. “As this wildfire continues to spread, the state of emergency allows us to mobilize resources quickly and ensure our firefighters have the support they need to protect lives and property,” Mr. McMaster said in a statement. Another fire, the Persimmon Ridge fire, started Saturday in the Mountain Bridge Wilderness area and had grown to more than 800 acres by Sunday evening. The South Carolina Forestry Commission said that both fires remained zero percent contained as of Sunday night. Around 100 homes were under voluntary evacuations just east of Table Rock State Park on Sunday, while another 500 homes remained under close watch. Officials from the South Carolina Forestry Commission urged people to stay away from the area. The Storm Prediction Center issued an elevated fire-weather risk on Saturday, for an area from northern Georgia, through western portions of the Carolinas and into central Virginia. Fires have been fueled by weeks of below-average rainfall, with much of Polk County experiencing moderate drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. These conditions are common in spring, said Bob Oravec, a meteorologist with the Weather Prediction Center. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT “Right around when the leaves start coming up on the trees, right around green-up,” he said. “There’s a lot of dry fuels on the ground, so it’s easy for them to burn.” Some relief arrived on Sunday night, when showers were expected to increase humidity levels. Beyond that, Mr. Oravec said, conditions will remain mostly cool and dry across the eastern United States. “No real big blockbuster rains to really help the drought conditions,” he said.

A series of powerful storms have whipped up winds across the Southwest and southern Plains in the last few weeks, churning up vast clouds of dust that have turned highways into hazard zones. In the last month, at least 20 people have died in car crashes amid low or nonexistent visibility. The impact of these dust storms stretched beyond the region. Strong winds carried the dust unusually far — hundreds of miles north and east — where it mixed with rain, leaving residents as far as the Mid-Atlantic puzzled by the orange residue coating their cars and homes. Here’s a look at how a rare combination of drought and strong winds turned a relatively normal late-winter weather event into something far more unusual. In El Paso, ‘it looks like Mars.’ Dust storms are driven by winds that lift loose dirt up into the air — the drier the land, the less secure the soil. They occur all over the world, mostly in the Middle East and North Africa. In Europe, it’s not uncommon for fine particles of sand from the deserts of northern Africa to get kicked up by warm, humid Saharan winds that blow from the south or the southeast across the Mediterranean Sea and into southern Europe. That dust can even get dragged as far north as Britain, where it’s sometimes referred to as “blood rain” because of its dirty hue.These storms can also happen just about anywhere in the United States, including eastern Washington and California’s Central Valley. But they’re especially common in the desert Southwest and across the southern Great Plains, particularly in late winter and early spring. The activity there has long peaked in April, though research shows the season is shifting earlier with storms increasingly being reported in March. Deserts, overgrazed land and areas experiencing drought are especially prone to dust storms. It’s no coincidence that most of the Southwest and southern Plains are experiencing some level of drought, and it’s especially bad in far West Texas. In El Paso, there have been more days with low visibility from dust than clear ones so far this month, said Thomas Gill, a professor of environmental science and engineering at the University of Texas at El Paso. “It’s kind of the expected weather in spring, and we live with it,” he said. “But to have this dust that is so thick that you can barely see a block or two down the road and it looks like Mars, it’s really unusual to have a dust storm that bad, much less three in less than three weeks’ time.” Brownish snow fell as far as Iowa. There have been three main storms this month that have upended daily life in parts of the Southwest, southern Plains and Chihuahua, Mexico: one on March 3 and 4, one on March 14, last Friday, and one this week, on Tuesday. And each time, dust from this unusually intense succession of storms did something even more unusual: It was lofted up and carried hundreds of miles north and east to other parts of North America. National Weather Service offices in Charleston, W.Va., and St. Louis have shared satellite images showing that dust from the Southwest had been swept up high into the atmosphere and then, as light rain moved through their regions, been pulled down to the ground. Last week, television stations as far away as North Carolina were talking about the “dirty rain” that had fallen from the sky.Particles from Tuesday’s dust storm made their way to Iowa, where snow on the ground had a “brownish, yellowish tinge,” said Brooke Hagenhoff, a meteorologist with the Weather Service office in Des Moines. The dust was carried so far because of the orientation of the storm and the strength of the winds, said Bill Line, a research scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Center for Satellite Applications and Research. These systems come from the West Coast and move up and over the Rocky Mountains, gaining strength and intensity, Mr. Gill said. Then they move into eastern New Mexico, the Texas Panhandle and western Oklahoma and Kansas, which is essentially the 1930s Dust Bowl region.“As these storms start intensifying in that region, the winds from those storms can extend hundreds of miles out from the center of the storm, all the way to the Mexican border and beyond and then all the way across the Plains,” he said. “As they get more and more intense, the winds crank up.” All three recent events lasted several hours, but experts agree the one on March 14 was the most severe, with winds over 80 miles per hour kicking the dust far into the sky and helping to propel it into regions that don’t normally see its effects. Aaron Ward, a meteorologist with the Weather Service, said an 83 m.p.h. gust was recorded in Amarillo, Texas — among the strongest ever measured by his office, with records going back 175 years. The dust from that event was carried well into Ontario by the next day, said Mr. Line. The March 14 wind storm didn’t only whip up dust, it also caused wildfires to rapidly spread across Texas and Oklahoma. In detailed satellite imagery you could see the thick dispersion of dust sweeping east as well as the darker milky gray smoke plumes rising above the brown dust.

Bone-dry winds tore across parts of Texas and New Mexico, kicking up dust storms and causing dangerous driving conditions, as forecasters said the risk of fires breaking out in the parched region would persist into Thursday. A red flag warning, indicating a high risk that fires could start or spread, was in place for parts of Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, Arkansas, Missouri and Illinois until Thursday. Wind gusts of over 60 miles per hour were forecast for northwestern Texas as well as the Texas Panhandle overnight, according to the Weather Service, with the potential for new fires and continued dust storms. The wind direction was expected to shift in some areas tonight in the southern Plains, which could create challenges for firefighters. Damaging winds were also expected to pick up in Oklahoma and West Kansas. The Weather Service’s bureau in Norman, Okla., said on social media that strong winds would continue for much of the day on Wednesday. It had warned on Tuesday night of “extremely hazardous” travel because of low visibility, especially in southwest Oklahoma.Blowing dust reduced visibility to near zero around Lubbock, Texas, as it moved into southwestern Oklahoma on Tuesday night, the National Weather Service said. Parts of the Texas Panhandle and Oklahoma were under blowing dust warnings until early Wednesday. Severe dust storms also hit New Mexico, where the authorities had urged people to avoid driving on Tuesday. Poor visibility led to dangerous driving conditions and some road closures, according to New Mexico’s Transportation Department. Winds were diminishing on Wednesday but patchy blowing dust was still possible in the eastern part of the state, the Weather Service said. Severe weather and crashes led to the closure of a stretch of Highway 54, in the village of Ruidoso, N.M., about 65 miles west of Roswell, according to the authorities. On Tuesday night, the severe weather conditions knocked out power to On Wednesday, about 40,000 customers in Texas were without power after severe weather conditions knocked out service, according to PowerOutage.us, a tracking website. Critical fire conditions were expected to return to the eastern part of New Mexico on Thursday, the Weather Service said. In Texas, a fire near Borger in Hutchinson County broke out on Tuesday evening and by Wednesday it had spread to 500 acres, after wind gusts had reached 70 miles per hour, city authorities said in a statement on Wednesday. It was about 50 percent contained. Power was out for much of the city, which has a population of more than 12,000, on Wednesday, the statement said. Another fire in a largely agricultural area in northern Dallam County more than doubled, to about 18,000 acres, and was 50 percent contained by Wednesday, according to the Texas A&M Forest Service. The authorities in the area shut down roads because of low visibility from blowing dust and wildfire smoke.

Wildfires in Los Angeles. Tornadoes in the South and Midwest. Flooding in North Carolina. From coast to coast, a wave of extreme weather events over the past year has destroyed homes and upended lives. As the planet gets warmer, it’s essential for home buyers to consider climate vulnerability. If you already own a home, how can you best protect it from the next weather disaster? A good place to start is double-checking your insurance policy (hazard insurance is often required when closing on a home). You may also want to make a record of all the items in your home, as most insurance carriers require policyholders to submit comprehensive lists of everything lost in a disaster. Here are some more tips on how to defend your home against three distinct climate threats. Flooding To best protect and prepare your home for a flood, the Federal Emergency Management Agency recommends purchasing flood insurance, which is a good idea even if you don’t live in a flood zone (and even if you’re a renter). If a strong storm is in the forecast, go outside and make sure that sidewalks, curbs and storm drains are clear of debris and leaves. Then do some checkups around the house: Does water pool around the foundation or windows? Are the gutters or downspouts clogged? If you see trouble, call a professional. If your basement is prone to flooding, consider installing French drains, a sump pump and an ejector pump, all of which can prevent water from breaching your basement floor. Installing a water alarm could be helpful too. FEMA also suggests that homeowners “elevate and anchor” critical utilities, like electrical panels, propane tanks, sockets, wiring, appliances and heating systems. For example, if your water heater is in the basement, replace it with a tankless one mounted on the wall, or move it to the first floor. Elevating or moving some furniture and valuables to a higher floor or attic is also a good idea. You can even elevate your entire home. If you plan to renovate, consider installing ceramic-tile floors instead of wood and carpet, cement board instead of drywall, and flood vents. Wind The increase in hurricanes, tornadoes and severe thunderstorms means not just more water, but more wind. Even if your home is strong enough to fend off a wind storm, the trees and objects around it may not be. Let’s start inside. Storm shutters, stormproof glass, and shatter-resistant film can protect windows from flying debris. If you have an attached garage, you can reinforce it by strengthening the wheel tracks. And if you have double-entry doors, secure them with a heavy-duty deadbolt. FEMA also suggests building a safe room to shelter in. Make sure that everything that lives outside — fencing, sheds, trash cans, patio furniture, gutters and downspouts — is secured and won’t become a projectile. That includes landscaping: Rock and gravel materials can ravage wood and vinyl siding. Think about mulch or dirt instead. The roof is often the first thing to go in a fierce wind. FEMA recommends fortifying it by reattaching loose shingles and installing roof strapping — metal connectors that strengthen the connection between the roof and the walls. Finally, strong winds can topple dead trees and send branches flying. Contact an arborist or landscape specialist to remove damaged or dead trees from your property, and consider cutting down any large trees that are close enough to land on your home. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Fire According to the National Fire Protection Association, small flames and airborne embers are often the culprits when homes are damaged or destroyed in wildfires. Flying embers can attach to your roof’s ledges and eaves, so consider installing noncombustible roof coverings, replacing loose shingles, and installing metal-mesh screening under eaves to stop embers from getting through. The “immediate zone” around your home — anything within five feet of the exterior — is the most important to address, according to the U.S. Fire Administration. Make sure the roof and gutters are free from dead leaves, debris and pine needles, and move anything flammable away from the walls, such as mulch, leaves and firewood. Aside from the roof, you may want to replace your fences or decking with nonflammable materials, such as metal or tile. To get ahead, FEMA suggests installing some external sprinklers that have dedicated power sources, in case the hydrants don’t work. Embers can also enter your home via the vents, so consider installing fire-resistant vents or covering them with metal mesh.

Here’s a nightmare scenario: You’re in the emergency room of a busy hospital and victims of accidents, disasters and diseases are streaming in. Nurses and doctors huddle around computer monitors displaying patients’ heart rates and oxygen levels. Suddenly, the screens go dark. Someone is going through the building pulling all the plugs. This is happening now to the monitors tracking the Earth’s vital signs. As Trump administration operatives from what has been called the Department of Government Efficiency race through federal agencies firing staffers, freezing funds and canceling leases on facilities — purportedly to eliminate waste — they are effectively powering off systems that track mounting environmental dangers, from weather balloons to air pollution monitors to radar stations to atmospheric observatories. Their chain-saw-waving approach to cost-cutting will only leave us blind as we head deeper into the 21st-century maelstrom of supercharged hurricanes, extreme heat waves and toxic wildfire smoke. Right now, satellites operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are capturing real-time images of the weather churning across the planet’s surface. The agency’s ocean buoys and radar systems help the Coast Guard perform rescues and fishermen navigate shifting tides and currents. Those instruments need humans to operate them. But over the past three weeks, NOAA has lost about 20 percent of its work force. Layoffs hit the satellite operations division based in Maryland, and the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii. Hurricane season is right around the corner, yet staff on NOAA’s famous “Hurricane Hunters” teams, which fly into storms to measure their strength and assess their danger, were let go. The agency’s scientists help build the forecasting models used to predict what the weather will look like next week, and what your children’s climate might look like half a century from now. Farmers use the agency’s weather data to plan their crop planting and harvesting, and urban firefighters rely on it to anticipate high wind events and prepare for downed power lines and evacuations. But staffing reductions at NOAA’s National Weather Service offices have suspended the launch of weather balloons that collect wind, temperature and humidity readings from Alaska to Albany.These cuts threaten your budget, too. Insurance companies rely heavily on data gathered by NOAA and the U.S. Geological Survey to assess wildfire, flood, wind and other risks. Some firms are warning that any interruption in data availability could drive insurance premiums for customers even higher. Other layoffs at the U.S.G.S. could undermine programs that monitor drought and flood conditions, hazardous spills and sewage overflows and the health of salmon fisheries off the Pacific Coast. And then there’s air pollution. On March 4, the State Department announced that it would no longer share data gathered by air quality monitors at more than 80 U.S. embassies and consulates around the world. With that decision, another one of the government’s most effective global monitoring efforts went dark. Since the first air quality monitoring system was installed atop the U.S. Embassy in Beijing in 2008, the initiative has yielded a huge return on a modest investment by simply telling people what they’re breathing. During a particularly severe air pollution episode in November 2010, the Beijing monitor tweeted an automated message that air quality in the city had reached “crazy bad” levels. The programmers had written that message in jest, assuming that it would never be triggered because pollution levels would never get that bad. The tweet prompted news stories around the world, and the intense scrutiny helped compel China’s leaders to act. Fifteen years later, China’s air is much cleaner. From Lagos to Karachi, U.S. Embassy monitors were among the only reliable sources of information about what residents were inhaling every day. One 2022 study found that the air quality readings triggered local policies that substantially reduced particulate matter concentrations, leading to reductions in premature deaths and saving an average of $127 million per city each year. The State Department cited “budget constraints” as the reason for shuttering the program. But the researchers found that the program saved the State Department money — it more than covered its costs by reducing compensation for embassy workers’ pollution exposure. Editors’ Picks His Life Savings Were Mailed to Him by Paper Check. Now, It’s Gone. Is There a Least Bad Alcohol? Rocking Pink and Ready to Party On top of all that, there’s a federal-building fire sale underway. DOGE has begun the process of canceling leases on hundreds of federal properties housing operations for the U.S.G.S., the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Environmental Protection Agency and dozens of other agencies. Another property lease DOGE has slated for cancellation is for a NOAA office in Hilo, Hawaii, that operates the Mauna Loa Observatory. This research station records one of the most consequential vital signs of all: rising levels of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Researchers say it will be difficult to run the observatory without that office’s technical support. Canceling the lease would save $150,692 a year, DOGE claims. That means the administration’s cost-cutters are essentially gambling with people’s futures and lives, unplugging lifesaving equipment to save a bit on electricity. Federal judges recently deemed some of the Trump administration’s mass layoffs unlawful, and ordered that some fired probationary workers be temporarily reinstated across nearly 20 agencies. But the White House is telling agency heads to prepare for another large wave of staffing cuts — touted as the largest yet. Some Republican leaders are making last-minute appeals for programs and facilities to be spared. “I am thrilled to announce that common sense has prevailed,” Representative Tom Cole of Oklahoma, the Republican head of the House Appropriations Committee, wrote on X before intervening a few days later to save the radar facility that NOAA operates in his district, which is squarely in Tornado Alley. Over the weekend, as dust storms and wildfires tore through Oklahoma and dozens of deadly tornadoes struck Mississippi, Arkansas and Missouri, that facility issued lifesaving warnings. The storms have killed at least 36 people, but more would surely have perished without the advance alerts provided by the agency’s satellites and staff — a reminder of just how essential these weather centers are. But ad hoc protection of single weather centers is not an efficient way to run a government. In the 21st century, with rising temperatures, rapidly intensifying storms and growing pandemic risks, we’re all in Tornado Alley. Common sense tells us that we need all the sentinels we have, and then some.

Deadly severe weather that spawned tornadoes and dust storms across the Midwest and South arrived on the East Coast on Sunday, bringing with it powerful winds and the potential for tornadoes across the Mid-Atlantic and the Southeast. The turbulent weather, which has killed a total of at least 40 people, has caused widespread destruction. It is part of a huge cross-country system that dropped hail — some as large as baseballs — and produced tornadoes Friday and Saturday that killed at least 24 people. The system also caused wildfires driven by hurricane-force winds, and dust storms that led to crashes that killed at least 16 people in Kansas, Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle. On Sunday, the threat of tornadoes and thunderstorms shifted east, though at a level much lower than it was on Saturday. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT A complex of storms that was over Alabama, Mississippi and parts of Tennessee on Saturday moved into northern Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and a portion of North Carolina on Sunday morning.The biggest concern for the Mid-Atlantic, from Virginia to New Jersey, was strong, damaging winds, but there was also a risk of a few brief tornadoes. By late Sunday afternoon, parts of Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Maryland, Virginia and Washington were under tornado watches and wind advisories. The Weather Service also warned of winds up to 55 miles per hour in Central Florida until 4 a.m. on Monday. A ground stop was issued at the airport in Tampa, Fla., on Sunday because of the severe storms, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT According to FlightAware, a company that tracks flights, more than 100 flights were canceled at the Orlando, Fla., airport during the busiest weekend of spring break travel. There were also flight delays at airports in Washington, New York and Philadelphia because of the weather system, according to the F.A.A. Forecasters said there was a slight risk of severe storms and tornadoes from Central Florida to western Pennsylvania. However, a higher enhanced risk was in place for western and central Pennsylvania, where more than 100,000 power outages were reported on Sunday. In central Pennsylvania, Denys Khrulov, a senior meteorology student at Penn State, said that the storm whipped through campus on Sunday afternoon, bringing high winds, pea-sized hail and rain that brought down trees and power lines. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Mr. Khrulov and other meteorology students watched the weather from a parking garage. “I think this is definitely the most intense storm I’ve seen here personally,” Mr. Khrulov said.The heaviest rainfall on Sunday was expected along the East Coast from South Carolina up to Massachusetts, with about one to two inches of rain possible. A few locations in this area could record up to five inches, particularly in eastern Virginia and eastern North Carolina. New York City could record one to two inches of rain, depending on where thunderstorms are oriented. This large storm system is expected to move offshore on Monday. Rich Otto, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center, said there was likely to be a break from the extreme and tempestuous weather for “at least a few to several days” but the overall pattern suggests that more storms will move across the country before the end of March. “This is probably not the last time we’ll talk about severe thunderstorms in the next several weeks,” he said.