Floods

A new radar system promises to improve weather predictions, providing additional warning time to prevent flooding and more accurate forecasts for heavy rainfall, down to a specific low-lying highway or neighborhood.

That money will pay for a checklist of items, including assessing erosion at the toe of the earthen dam caused by seepage, evaluating gaps in metal sheet piling, installing survey monuments and assessing underwater components.

For decades, taxpayers have been subsidizing flood insurance rates, but new premium calculations by FEMA will adjust rates to better reflect the true risk of flood-prone homes.

As Sunday night’s storm neared Norman, Okla., the Norman Police Department warned residents they’d need to take weather precautions, but that Norman has no public shelters. The storm dropped golf and tennis ball-sized hail on Norman.

The new plan "is correcting long standing inequities in the current pricing scheme ... Policy holders with lower value homes who have been paying more than they should will no longer bear the cost for property owners with higher value homes who have been paying less than they should."

After Hurricane Ike hit in 2008, pushing a 17-foot storm surge over Galveston Island and Bolivar Peninsula, causing $30 billion of damage and killing 43 people, there was a collective epiphany.

Miami is already experiencing such groundwater flooding. The Atlantic Ocean has risen enough that it routinely pushes subterranean water levels so they breach the land's surface in some neighborhoods there on a daily basis.

The National Weather Service in New Orleans says 2-4 inches of rain have fallen. Another 1.25-2.5 inches of rain is expected to fall in an hour in portions of the warned areas.

Ida overwhelmed sewers in minutes when it barreled in over the city on Sept. 1, flooding entire neighborhoods, causing stormwater to surge into people’s homes and killing at least 13 New Yorkers.