Are You Ready for Slushy Summer?
For the past few weeks, as New York turned into an open-air pizza oven, I've kept cool with a refreshing round robin of homemade frosé, soft serve and frosty margaritas. I've been testing a pair of countertop contraptions: the new $575 GreenPan Frost, a soft serve ice cream and frozen drink maker, and the $350 Ninja Slushi, which makes only frozen drinks. But it wasn't all colorful beverages and paper umbrellas—I've also faced a daily duel with sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia, better known as brain freeze. I tell you this not as a bid for your pity, but only to note that even the cushiest assignments have their hazards.
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an hour ago
- Yahoo
Man tries to 'hold it together' with 5 family members missing amid Texas flooding
KERRVILLE, Texas — In the sticky Texas heat with night approaching, Xavier Ramirez waited outside Calvary Temple Church hoping for a miracle — that somehow his mom, stepfather, aunt, uncle and cousin weren't swallowed by Texas' bloated Guadalupe River. Ramirez, 23, from Midland, was at the church in Kerrville with weariness in his eyes. He was getting by 'minute to minute, second to second,' he said. One of his cousins, Devyn Smith, who had been at HTR Campgrounds outside Ingram when the Guadalupe River burst from its banks, had been found late Friday and was recovering at Peterson Regional Center, he said. Smith, 23, was found about 20 miles downriver outside Center Point in a tree, Ramirez said. But she was one of six who'd been at the campground outside Ingram in Kerr County. Ramirez said he still was awaiting word of his aunt, Tasha Ramos; another cousin, Kendall Ramos; his stepfather, Cody Crossland; his mother, Michelle Crossland; and his uncle Joel Ramos. The campground had been a destination spot for years, where the family had gone to enjoy the river since he was a small boy, Ramirez said. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, rapidly emerging thunderstorms in the Texas Hill Country produced near 100-year flooding. The Guadalupe River marked 23.4 feet on a flood stage chart, above 'major flooding' indicators, early Friday, according to NOAA. The shocking rise of floodwaters, possibly boosted by a 'flood wave' that rolled along the Guadalupe and could have instantly raised its depth, left vehicles abandoned, mobile homes and businesses totaled and summer camps usually busy with holiday weekend activities wiped of humanity and surrounded by muddy sediment. The devastating flooding has so far claimed the lives of at least 51 people across the state, with dozens more missing, including 27 children who were at Camp Mystic, a Christian summer camp for girls. Kerr County has been the hardest hit, with officials there reporting at least 43 deaths, including 15 children, as search and rescue efforts continue. Gov. Greg Abbott, who visited Kerrville on Saturday, declared a state of disaster for 20 Texas counties affected by the flooding and proclaimed Sunday will be a day of prayer for victims of the extreme weather event. He said he has also requested federal disaster relief. Ramirez's family had been asleep when the Guadalupe River's waters began to rise in the early morning hours Friday. 'They slept in the truck. They didn't think it was safe in a tent' because they had heard about the storm, Ramires said, relaying what his cousin had told the family. There were two trucks: his mother and father and teenage cousin in one, and his aunt, uncle and Smith in the other. It was his aunt who awoke first. The family members scrambled to get to the top of the trucks, climbing through sun roofs, Ramirez said. 'They lost my uncle first' to the water's heavy current, Ramirez recalled. 'He had tried to keep them all together and couldn't hold on.' His mother, stepfather and Smith had managed to get to higher ground and had planned to go get help. 'We found their truck in Ingram, against a tree, crushed and flipped, not far from the campground,' he said. His mother's purse was inside when the family found the truck Saturday, after a day of searching. 'I'm the only boy, so I'm trying to hold it together for rest of the family,' Ramirez said. This article was originally published on
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Twenty-seven girls still missing from summer camp after Texas floods
Twenty-seven girls are still missing in Texas after a storm unleashed nearly a foot (0.3 meters) of rain on Friday and sent floodwaters gushing out of the Guadalupe River through the hilly region known for its century-old summer camps.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
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Texas Officials Slam Trump's National Weather Service for Botched Forecast
Officials in Texas are casting blame on the National Weather Service (NWS) for failing to forecast catastrophic flooding that has killed at least 27 people. NWS was among the government agencies targeted by the Department of Government Efficiency in its effort to gut the federal bureaucracy, losing approximately 600 staffers. After the cuts, the agency—which was already understaffed—began to prepare to offer 'degraded' forecasting services, facing 'severe shortages' of meteorologists, according to an internal document obtained by The New York Times in April. 'The original forecast that we received Wednesday from the National Weather Service predicted 3-6 inches of rain in the Concho Valley and 4-8 inches in the Hill Country,' said Texas Emergency Management Chief W. Nim Kidd at a press conference Friday. 'The amount of rain that fell at this specific location was never in any of those forecasts.' Sudden thunderstorms dumped more than 10 inches of rain on the area, causing heavy flooding from the Guadalupe River. Dalton Rice, the city manager for Kerrville, Texas—who also spoke at the press conference—said that the catastrophic flash flooding happened because the skies 'dumped more rain than what was forecasted' on two of the river's forks. The flooding has killed at least 43 people so far, including 15 children. More than 25 young girls from Camp Mystic, a Christian summer camp that sits near the river, are still missing. Speaking to reporters on Air Force One Friday, Trump called the catastrophe 'shocking' and 'terrible.' 'They don't know the answer yet as to how many people, but it looks like some young people have died,' he said. In May, all five living directors of the NWS issued a letter warning that Trump's cuts 'leave the nation's official weather forecasting entity at a significant deficit ... just as we head into the busiest time for severe storm predictions like tornadoes and hurricanes,' the directors wrote. 'Our worst nightmare is that weather forecast offices will be so understaffed that there will be needless loss of life.' In a statement to the Daily Beast, a spokesperson for the NWS said: 'The National Weather Service is heartbroken by the tragic loss of life in Kerr County. On July 3, the NWS office in Austin/San Antonio, Texas, conducted forecast briefings for emergency management in the morning and issued a Flood Watch in the early afternoon. Flash Flood Warnings were also issued on the night of July 3 and in the early morning of July 4, giving preliminary lead times of more than three hours before flash flooding conditions occurred.' The Times reported in June that, just months after the Trump administration had forced out hundreds of staffers, the National Weather Service was granted a waiver to the administration's government-wide hiring freeze. A spokesperson told the Times that the 126 staffers it planned to add—about a fifth of the number cut—were intended to 'stabilize' the agency.
