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Shipping containers are partly immersed in water at the flooded harbour in Riesa in the federal state of Saxony after the Elbe river has broken its banks, June 5, 2013:
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Residents and emergency crews had worked through the night to fight the floods in Dresden. The German military and the national disaster team sent more support in a frantic effort to sandbag levees and riverbanks as floodwaters that have claimed 16 lives since last week surged north.
"Everybody's afraid but the people are simply fantastic and sticking together," said Dresden resident Silvia Fuhrmann, who had brought food and drinks to those building sandbag barriers.
The Elbe hit 28 feet, 9 inches around midday - well above its regular level of 6 1/2 feet. Still, that was not high enough to damage the city's famous opera, cathedral and other buildings in its historic city centre, which was devastated in a flood in 2002.
Germany has 60,000 local emergency personnel and aid workers, as well as 25,000 federal disaster responders and 16,000 soldiers now fighting the floods.
Further downstream, the town of Lauenburg - just southwest of Hamburg - evacuated 150 houses along the Elbe, n-tv news reported, as the floodwaters roared toward the North Sea.
© APA man cleans the bank of river Elbe in front of the historical bridge Blaues Wunder in Dresden
The Elbe hit 28 feet, 9 inches around midday - well above its regular level of 6 1/2 feet. Still, that was not high enough to damage the city's famous opera, cathedral and other buildings in its historic city centre, which was devastated in a flood in 2002.
Germany has 60,000 local emergency personnel and aid workers, as well as 25,000 federal disaster responders and 16,000 soldiers now fighting the floods.
Further downstream, the town of Lauenburg - just southwest of Hamburg - evacuated 150 houses along the Elbe, n-tv news reported, as the floodwaters roared toward the North Sea.
Floods are one of the most common hazards in the United States, however not all floods are alike. Some floods develop slowly, while others such a flash floods, can develop in just a few minutes and without visible signs of rain. Additionally, floods can be local, impacting a neighborhood or community, or very large, affecting entire river basins and multiple states.
Flash floods can occur within a few minutes or hours of excessive rainfall, a dam or levee failure, or a sudden release of water held by an ice jam. Flash floods often have a dangerous wall of roaring water carrying rocks, mud and other debris. Overland flooding, the most common type of flooding event typically occurs when waterways such as rivers or streams overflow their banks as a result of rainwater or a possible levee breach and cause flooding in surrounding areas. It can also occur when rainfall or snowmelt exceeds the capacity of underground pipes, or the capacity of streets and drains designed to carry flood water away from urban areas.
Be aware of flood hazards no matter where you live or work, but especially if you are in low-lying areas, near water, behind a levee or downstream from a dam. Even very small streams, gullies, creeks, culverts, dry streambeds or low-lying ground that appear harmless in dry weather can flood.
A raging flood wave that inundated parts of Prague is now heading north toward Germany, forcing the evacuation of thousands of people and leading to concerns about the safety of chemical plants.
More than 19,000 people have been evacuated from the flooding that has affected half of the Czech Republic, said firefighters spokeswoman Nicole Zaoralova. Some 3,000 people had to leave their homes in Usti nad Labem on the Elbe river near the German border where the waters were still on the rise Wednesday. High waters have already submerged parts of the city as well many other towns along the Elbe, the biggest river in the country.
They are also threatening major chemical factories, including one that released toxic chemicals into the Elbe during the devastating floods of 2002. The plants have been shut down as a precaution and chemicals removed, authorities said. Czech public television said a barrier that protects one chemical plant in Lovosice was leaking Wednesday and it was not immediately clear if it might be completely flooded.
© Associated Press/Markus SchreiberTwo men in a boat cross the flooded market place of the city of Wehlen at the river Elbe , Germany, Tuesday, June 4, 2013. After heavy rainfalls, swollen rivers flooded areas in Germany, Austria , Switzerland and Czech Republic.
They are also threatening major chemical factories, including one that released toxic chemicals into the Elbe during the devastating floods of 2002. The plants have been shut down as a precaution and chemicals removed, authorities said. Czech public television said a barrier that protects one chemical plant in Lovosice was leaking Wednesday and it was not immediately clear if it might be completely flooded.
Record floods in southern Germany have subsided to some extent in certain areas. Other parts of the country continue to hold their breath as the worst flooding may still be to come.For some residents in southern Germany, Wednesday marks the first day they can begin assessing the damage of the floods that have hit wide swathes of the country. For others, Wednesday could see the worst flooding yet.
The eastern German city of Dresden is one of the places where citizens are bracing for the worst. Over 600 people have been evacuated there as water levels are expected to rise to 8.27 meters (27.1 feet) - well above normal levels of around two meters.
Across the border in the Czech Republic, the story is the same: the cities of Usti-nad-Labem on the Elbe river are also expected to see peak flood stages. The same rush of water is expected to hit Dresden downriver on the Elbe.
Magdeburg, which also lies on the Elbe, is expecting water levels to rise nearly 5 meters (16.4 feet) above normal. A state of emergency has been declared there, and other cities along the Elbe in German state of Saxony are taking similar precautions.
Across the border in the Czech Republic, the story is the same: the cities of Usti-nad-Labem on the Elbe river are also expected to see peak flood stages. The same rush of water is expected to hit Dresden downriver on the Elbe.
Magdeburg, which also lies on the Elbe, is expecting water levels to rise nearly 5 meters (16.4 feet) above normal. A state of emergency has been declared there, and other cities along the Elbe in German state of Saxony are taking similar precautions.
© YouTube/Creative CommonsHail coats Cape Town, South Africa as a cold front hit on Sunday, June 2, 2013.
Wilfred Solomons-Johannes of Cape Town Disaster Management told the media that 2,266 people have been affected by floods on the Cape Flats. Around 550 houses have been damaged in Bishop Lavis, Guguletu, Hout Bay, Khayelitsha, Philippi and Strand.
In Athlone, Elsies River, Langa and Parow Valley, roofs were blown off houses.
Cape Town mayor, Patricia De Lille called for "extraordinary emergency arrangements".
The tornado that killed nine and injured about 50 people near Oklahoma City on Friday has been rated a top-of-the-scale EF5, the National Weather Service said Tuesday.
It also had a record-breaking width of 2.6 miles, double the size of the 1.3-mile-wide tornado that devastated Moore, Oklahoma last month.
The National Weather Service posted this graphic to its website illustrating the path of the huge tornado.
EF5 tornadoes are extremely rare, and the Oklahoma City area seems to have bad luck with them. On May 3, 1999, an EF5 tornado hit the same area and killed 46 people. The Moore tornado last month killed 24 people and destroyed thousands of homes.
The death toll was lower for Friday's tornado because the area it hit wasn't as heavily populated as Moore, which is about 11 miles south of Oklahoma City. El Reno, where the EF5 tornado hit on May 31, is about 30 miles west of Oklahoma City.
There have been only eight tornadoes rated an EF5 in Oklahoma since 1950, meaning a quarter of them have hit near Oklahoma City in the past two weeks alone, according to a tweet from a Weather Channel meteorologist.
It also had a record-breaking width of 2.6 miles, double the size of the 1.3-mile-wide tornado that devastated Moore, Oklahoma last month.
The National Weather Service posted this graphic to its website illustrating the path of the huge tornado.
The death toll was lower for Friday's tornado because the area it hit wasn't as heavily populated as Moore, which is about 11 miles south of Oklahoma City. El Reno, where the EF5 tornado hit on May 31, is about 30 miles west of Oklahoma City.
There have been only eight tornadoes rated an EF5 in Oklahoma since 1950, meaning a quarter of them have hit near Oklahoma City in the past two weeks alone, according to a tweet from a Weather Channel meteorologist.
Yukon River flooding that knocked out power to the Alaska village of Galena has brought on a number of secondary problems, including how to keep bears away from hundreds of pounds of game meat that has spoiled in residents' refrigerators and freezers.
The flood caused by ice clogging the Yukon submerged some homes and washed out the road to the community's landfill. On Monday, emergency responders were developing plans to collect spoiled meat and fly it by helicopter to the dump, said Jeremy Zidek, spokesman for the Alaska Department of Military and Veterans Affairs.
"All the freezers filled with game began to get pretty bad," Zidek said.
Plans called for meat to be collected in one central location, loaded into a sling and lifted to the dump, he said.
Many Galena residents remain evacuated to other communities, and Zidek was unsure who would be doing the collecting. In rural Alaska, freezers often are kept in arctic entryways where it's cold in the wintertime and where they're accessible without entering a home.
© Associated Press/National Weather Service, Ed Plumb In this May 27, 2013 photo released by the National Weather Service, ice and water are shown flooding homes and other buildings in Galena, Alaska. Several hundred people are estimated to have fled the community of Galena in Alaska's interior, where a river ice jam has caused major flooding, sending water washing over roads and submerging buildings.
"All the freezers filled with game began to get pretty bad," Zidek said.
Plans called for meat to be collected in one central location, loaded into a sling and lifted to the dump, he said.
Many Galena residents remain evacuated to other communities, and Zidek was unsure who would be doing the collecting. In rural Alaska, freezers often are kept in arctic entryways where it's cold in the wintertime and where they're accessible without entering a home.
Mississippi River communities scrambling Tuesday to fend off the rain-engorged waterway got discouraging news: More rains looming across much of the nation's midsection threatened to slow the potential retreat of the renegade river.
Such an outlook may not be welcomed in the northeast Missouri town of West Alton, where a makeshift levee's breach Monday fanned worries that the 570-resident town - which was mostly swept away by a flood in 1993 - would be inundated again. A voluntary evacuation advisory before the breach was fixed was heeded by just 15 percent of the town's residents, but "everyone else is ready to go at a moment's notice" if the hastily shored-up barrier shows signs of gives way, Fire Chief Rick Pender said Tuesday.
For now, he said, "everything is stable," with much of the flooding corralled in a railroad bed acting as a town-protecting channel.
"There are some spots not looking pretty (as defenses), but they're still holding the water back," Pender told The Associated Press by telephone. "Everyone is just monitoring the sandbags and barriers, waiting for this water to come down." The latest National Weather Service forecasts suggest that was to happen later Tuesday. But more rains expected in coming days, from St. Louis north to Minnesota and westward across some of the Great Plains, stood to drop another inch of precipitation here and there, adding more water to the Missouri River and the Mississippi River into which it feeds, National Weather Service hydrologist Mark Fuchs said.
Such an outlook may not be welcomed in the northeast Missouri town of West Alton, where a makeshift levee's breach Monday fanned worries that the 570-resident town - which was mostly swept away by a flood in 1993 - would be inundated again. A voluntary evacuation advisory before the breach was fixed was heeded by just 15 percent of the town's residents, but "everyone else is ready to go at a moment's notice" if the hastily shored-up barrier shows signs of gives way, Fire Chief Rick Pender said Tuesday.
For now, he said, "everything is stable," with much of the flooding corralled in a railroad bed acting as a town-protecting channel.
"There are some spots not looking pretty (as defenses), but they're still holding the water back," Pender told The Associated Press by telephone. "Everyone is just monitoring the sandbags and barriers, waiting for this water to come down." The latest National Weather Service forecasts suggest that was to happen later Tuesday. But more rains expected in coming days, from St. Louis north to Minnesota and westward across some of the Great Plains, stood to drop another inch of precipitation here and there, adding more water to the Missouri River and the Mississippi River into which it feeds, National Weather Service hydrologist Mark Fuchs said.
© APBrandon Ivey and Sean Casey, who appear in the Discovery Channel series Storm Chasers, captured the footage in eastern Smith County before the tornado ripped instruments from the top of the vehicle
Brandon Ivey and Sean Casey, who appear in the Discovery Channel series Storm Chasers, captured the footage in eastern Smith County before the tornado ripped instruments from the top of the vehicle.
The two said one of TIV2's doors and the top hatch were blown open by the storm but the vehicle stayed on the ground.
