[Saul Nuccitelli] Flooding is a really dangerous
phenomenon in Texas.
(water burbling)
We have flash floods in Central Texas that come very rapidly,
and people get washed away from roads
and homes get damaged very quickly.
(water crashing)
We have coastal flooding; hurricanes
that damage a lot of properties.
Texas has led the country
in most amount of accidental flood deaths,
largest amount of flood damages, certain years.
It's a very dangerous thing.
TexasFlood.org is a place
where you can learn the basics about flooding,
help you prepare in advance from floods that may occur,
and then help you recover after floods happen.
So it's kind of broken up
into a couple different categories.
First, you can learn a little bit
just about the basics of flooding;
what it is, how it can impact you.
Second is how you can prepare in advance.
What sorts of things should you do in advance of a flood,
how you might be able to prepare for it
and mitigate for it when it happens.
And then finally, some information
how to recover after a flood.
So you've been flooded, you've gotten damage.
How do you recover?
What sort of funding is available?
How you might initiate repairs to your home,
that sort of thing.
The redesign or refresh of our TexasFlood.org website
is focused on making it easier to use,
easier to understand the information.
All Texans don't have the ability to access information
in the same way.
And so we want to make it as broadly accessible
to everybody in Texas as easily as possible.
Second, when we did the redesign,
we wanted to make sure the information was all consolidated
in one place at TexasFlood.org.
There's been a proliferation of new flood maps.
And what we're doing is we're consolidating it
to where you can see all the different viewers
of the different types of flood maps
all within TexasFlood.org, in one area.
We provide a real-time estimates
of what might be happening for a particular storm.
And so you can look that up on a map view to see,
okay, storm front's coming--
what are the chances of the extensive flooding
in a specific area?
We also provide mapping information
that shows, just in general, what the risks are.
Nobody wants to have to live through a flooding disaster.
And a lot of times, you may have some heads up
that it's coming, but you don't necessarily know.
And the information isn't always readily available
in certain places.
And so what we're hoping to do
is make this easy to access, easy to understand.
And it's important for folks to prepare
and have a little bit of a game plan
in advance of when the flooding is actually coming.
(gentle music) (rain pattering)