Flash flood emergencies return to the Texas Hill Country as the state response tops 1,300 personnel; hazardous smoke blankets the Upper Midwest; NIFC update

EM Morning Brief · Jul 16, 2026 · 10m · transcript

Flash flood emergencies cover Kerr, Kendall, and Uvalde counties as the Guadalupe River surges and Governor Abbott expands the Texas disaster declaration to 59 counties with more than 1,300 personnel deployed. The Boundary Waters stays fully closed as 17 fires burn across the Superior National Forest, and hazardous smoke pushes air quality alerts from Minnesota to New York City. NIFC holds at Preparedness Level 4 with 48 uncontained large fires, CISA adds two exploited vulnerabilities to its KEV catalog, and WAPA works through outages and fuel constraints in the U.S. Virgin Islands. EM…