Even when floods can be anticipated, communicating their severity to the public is a tall order. Because flash floods are very localized, even neighborhood-level warnings may seem like false alarms to some residents, leading to what the journalist Zoë Schlanger has dubbed “ alert fatigue .”

The region of Texas that suffered tremendous loss last week because of heavy rain and flooding is once again in danger of taking in more water. On Sunday morning, the National Weather Service issued a flash flood warning for the epicenter of the catastrophic Independence Day flooding event.