Understanding the different levels of urgency between each kind of official flood alert that weather officials share may save your life. Here are three of the most crucial kinds of flood alerts to consider, in order of ascending urgency. Inevitably, at some point, you will likely get an alert on your phone about a flood watch in effect.

Storms outside the higher-risk zones caused problems in central Maryland with Flash Flood Warnings and a Flash Flood Emergency being issued outside Washington, D.C. Areas such as Bethesda, Takoma Park,

Failing to translate flood forecasts into timely messages that tell people what they need to do to stay safe can have tragic consequences. In Texas and elsewhere, the solution is more wide-ranging than fixing any single channel of communication.

The man who said he helped Kerr County implement an emergency alert system in his former role there as information technology director is now calling on top leaders to step down following a flash flood that killed more than 100 people.

The leader of Camp Mystic had been tracking the weather before the deadly Texas floods, but it is now unclear whether he saw an urgent warning from the National Weather Service that had triggered an emergency alert to phones in the area, a spokesman for camp’s operators said Wednesday.

Like most counties in Indiana, Clark County does not activate outdoor warning sirens for flash floods, only for tornadoes or severe thunderstorms with dangerous winds.

The Wireless Emergency Alerts are limited to flash flood warnings when there is a "threat tag" of considerable or catastrophic, the National Weather Service said.