NEW ORLEANS — There’s a theme lurking under the giant science meeting here along the Mississippi River: Extreme weather really is getting more extreme because of climate change. The human influence on hurricanes and wildfires is increasingly obvious. For years this has been a subject clouded in uncertainties. But now scientists say they have hard numbers. Wednesday morning two independent research teams, one based in the Netherlands and the other in California, reported that the…

Hurricane Harvey certainly isn’t something to commemorate.  Its powerful winds — a Category 4 upon impact near Rockport, the strongest Texas hurricane in half a century — demolished beachfront communities, wrecked vacation homes and trailer parks alike, and tossed boats and cars around like confetti. And its unprecedented rainfall, a mind-boggling 51 inches, drowned Houston, an already flood-prone city of more than 2 million, as well as communities up and down Texas’ Gulf Coast.  But when the publishing company…

For 60 years, the Texas Water Development Board has been the keeper of a master list of projects that are supposed to meet the state’s water needs for the next half century. But the latest list the agency is compiling is not about supplying water — it’s about managing it. Earlier this year in the wake of two major floods that crippled communities across the state — and just months before the remnants of Hurricane…

WASHINGTON – After a pair of massive hurricanes battered Texas and Florida, members of Congress from those states are facing an uncomfortable question: Does relief for one state come at the cost of the other? The fear among many in Washington is that the double-whammy of the two hurricanes — Harvey in Texas and Irma in Florida — could pull away federal resources needed in both states. One of the most important Texans in the middle of these…

Across Southeast Texas and along much of the Texas Gulf Coast, residents are returning to cities devastated by Hurricane Harvey. And flooding still remained in some areas of the state 10 days after Harvey first hit the Texas coast on Aug. 25. Gov. Greg Abbott has said the cost of storm recovery could reach $180 billion in federal funds, a total that would be $60 billion more than what was needed for recovery efforts after…