Flash floods can strike without warning — this new technology could change that

On the morning of June 9th, Laura Lin was working from her home in Lanesville, a rural southern Indiana town about 15 miles from the Kentucky border. She was on a Zoom call, unaware that the heavy rain outside was beginning to flood her yard. “I look over to where the barn is over there, and I see pieces of my wood floating, and I was like, ‘What?’ And I immediately was like, ‘I have to go.’ Close my laptop, and I get my kids up, and I’m like, ‘Something’s wrong,’” Lin recalls. Lin and her family got out safely and sheltered at a neighbor’s house, but Lanesville got over 8 inches of rain within just a few hours that day, way over the threshold for what is considered “heavy” rainfall. The water was gone a few hours later. Floods are the second-deadliest type of weather event in the United States and the deadliest globally. Just 6 inches of fast-flowing water can knock an adult off their feet, 12 inches can lift a car, and 2 feet can move larger vehicles like trucks and SUVs.…