Repeated storms are turning disaster recovery into a way of life, and leaving communities facing disaster fatigue

Flash flooding has been tearing up communities across the U.S., with heavy downpours sending creeks and rivers rushing over their banks from Texas to Kentucky, across the Midwest and into the Mid-Atlantic states and the Northeast. Texas’ Hill Country was hit hard again when a powerful storm triggered flooding on the Guadalupe and other rivers on July 16, 2026, in the same region where more than 100 people, including young campers, died in flash flooding on July 4, 2025. In Missouri, floodwater swept away a home, and National Guard helicopters had to rescue and evacuate dozens of people from a summer camp. If this feels like déjà vu after two summers of flash flooding across America, imagine being a community that has had to live through flooding like this again and again. Residents in Cocke County, Tennessee, were still recovering from the effects of Hurricane Helene’s deadly 2024 rush of mountain floodwater when a new storm turned creeks into raging rivers in June 2026. Officials in Tioga County, Pennsylvania, had been lobbying the state to dredge flood-prone streams before flash flooding in early July 2026 hit the same communities flooded by Hurricane Debby’s remnants two years earlier. As storms intensify…

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