At 11:58 a.m. on Friday, the NWS San Diego CA released an updated flash flood warning in effect until 2 p.m. for San Bernardino County.

“If you’ve never seen water rise in front of you in minutes, it’s hard to conceive of how quickly that can happen—and how quickly your life and property can be at risk,” said Rachel Hogan Carr, executive director of the Nurture Nature Center, a nonprofit focused on flood-risk communication.

The National Weather Service released an updated flash flood warning at 6:15 a.m. on Thursday in effect until 9 a.m. The warning is for Clay, Jackson, Carroll, Lafayette and Ray counties.

Failing to translate flood forecasts into timely messages that tell people what they need to do to stay safe can have tragic consequences. In Texas and elsewhere, the solution is more wide-ranging than fixing any single channel of communication.

Two massive disasters this year — the Texas floods and Los Angeles firestorms — are leading some to grapple with the question of how to get officials and the public to care and take action.

With an outpouring of volunteers from across Texas, the riverside town of Hunt is grappling with loss and recovery after deadly floods.

Today, 17 million are under flood alerts across the Gulf Coast and in the Mid-Atlantic, and 19 million are under heat alerts across the Mid-Atlantic, southern Florida and Mississippi Valley.

A flood watch has also been issued in Washington, D.C., while the Midwest also has the potential for flooding.