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WASHINGTON — A Federal Emergency Management Agency official addressing a House transportation panel Oct. 22 touted a disaster mitigation program established last year.

Imelda’s rains largely have left Houston, but the city and the surrounding region are reeling from the fallout. Much of the area remains flooded, with homes and businesses damaged, hundreds of abandoned cars left on highways, water systems compromised and at least two people dead.

Imelda is threatening to dump up to 18 inches of rain in parts of Southeast Texas and southwestern Louisiana as the tropical depression moves inland over the next few days.

Hurricane Dorian made landfall on the Outer Banks of North Carolina Sept. 6, battering the shore with driving rain and wind as it continues its march north and begins moving away from the U.S. coast.

Gas stations in parts of Florida are running out of fuel as drivers race to fill up ahead of Hurricane Dorian. Dorian’s course turned slightly south and now is expected to make landfall near Jupiter, Fla., as a Category 4, with winds reaching 140 miles per hour.

Oil and natural gas producers in the Gulf of Mexico began evacuating workers and shutting in output as a storm gathers strength off the coast of Florida.

Hundreds of barges are stalled on the Mississippi River, clogging the main circulatory system for a farm-belt economy battered by a relentless, record-setting string of snow, rainstorms and flooding.

There has never been a spring planting season like this one. Rivers topped their banks. Levees were breached. Fields filled with water and mud. And it kept raining.

The United States has been rocked by 500 tornadoes in the past 30 days with a trapped jet stream in the atmosphere “stuck in neutral,” according to the U.S. Storm Prediction Center.

The federal agency that manages dams along the Missouri River received stern criticism from several U.S. senators earlier this month during a hearing held to examine the massive flooding that caused more than $3 billion in damage in the Midwest.