"Flash Drought" Hitting Southeastern United States

The U.S Drought Monitor map from a week ago. Yellow indicates
abnormally dry, shades of orange are drought. Notice how
much more orange there is, especially in the Southeast,
in this week's map, below.

We've all heard of flash floods, when a torrential downpour turns quiet water into raging torrents pretty much instantaneously. That's why we call them flash floods. Duh! They hit in a flash.

There's actually such a thing a flash drought, too, believe it or not. Droughts usually develop over months or even years as persistent below normal rainfall dries out the ground, rivers and aquafers.

Under the right conditions, a strong weather pattern can create a drought in just a few weeks. That's what's now happening over the southeastern United States, as the Weather Channel reports. 

We've talked about that persistent heat ridge that has been stuck over the Southeast for over a month now. That has created the perfect conditions for a flash drought.

Of course, high pressure prevents rain from falling. The sinking air in a high pressure system tamps down clouds, so you don't get billowing clouds that can produce rain.

This weather pattern has also brought at least three weeks of record high temperatures, too. In general, the higher the temperature, the faster things dry out. Such is the case in the Southeast, where daytime temperatures have been consistently in the 90s or even 100s.

A great example of the weather that brought on this flash drought is Macon, Georgia.  They reached 102 yesterday, the hottest for so late in the season. It was the third day this month where it got to 100 degrees. Only one day so far this September has failed to reach 90 degrees in Macon.  Even worse, Macon has only received 0.02 inches of rain so far this month. They should have gotten a good three inches during that time period.

Much more orange this week as drought rapidly intensifies
and expands in the southeastern United States.

The U.S. Drought Monitor shows how fast this is developing. A week ago, 15 percent of Alabama was experiencing drought. This week, its more like 34 percent.

In Georgia, it's even worse. A week ago, about a quarter of that state was in drought. The U.S. Drought Monitor says this week, almost three quarters of Georgia is experiencing drought. That's an incredibly fast change for a building drought.

The flash drought also extends well into Texas, except in areas around Houston that drowned in flooding from Tropical Storm Imelda earlier this month.

The flash drought sneaks in to a lesser extent into New England, including here in Vermont.  There are currently no official drought regions in Vermont, but 72 percent of the Green Mountain State is regarded as abnormally dry by the U.S. Drought Monitor. That's up from 46 percent last week.

Vermont is on the northern edge of that heat ridge causing the baking dryness down south. Northern Vermont has been blessed by a series of weather fronts that have dumped some decent, but not overwhelming rains.  The southern half to two thirds of Vermont has lately largely missed out on these showers, hence the increasing dryness.

The weather outlook in the Southeast isn't very good. They will endure a few more days of record heat, along with a continued lack of rain through the weekend.

Extended forecasts into first ten days of October indicate continued warm, dry conditions in the Southeast. Up here in New England, it looks like it will turn chillier and wetter (mountain snows?) during early October.

No Deaths, But Another Disaster Might Now Be Hitting The South

Peach blossoms like this might be damaged or destroyed in a
widespread hard freeze going on in the South this week. A large
percentage of this year's crop might be ruined. 

It's kind of hard to tell right away, but another big disaster might be hitting the South, the second one this week.

As we know, tragic tornadoes killed 23 people and caused widespread property damage Sunday, especially in Alabama and Georgia.  

This new disaster now unfolding very likely won't kill or physically injure anybody. No additional houses will suffer structural damage. But this latest weather event could prove pretty expensive.

Freeze warnings stretch this morning in a broad band from Texas to South Carolina. It was below freezing, with some areas of reporting record chill this morning. More hard freezes are forecast tonight and in some places, tomorrow night.

It's especially harsh in areas hit by the tornadoes. In Lee County, Alabama, the epicenter of the tornado disaster, some sleet was reported overnight, and temperatures were in the mid-20s this morning.

Across much of the South, especially east of the Mississippi River, it was a near-record warm February. That prompted a lot of crops, including big fruit tree farms to start budding and blooming much earlier than normal.

Then this blast of Arctic air hit. If this sounds familiar, it's because it is. Similar expensive freezes after record early season warmth  hit parts of the middle, southern and eastern parts of the nation in 2017 and 2018.

In the Texas hill country, a big area around Austin, peach trees were blooming. If the temperature falls to 28 or lower for a fairly extended period of time, you lose the entire peach crop once the flowers are blooming. That's the scenario Texas peach farmers are now facing. 

Early this morning, it was 26 degrees in Austin, Texas and 29 in San Antonio. Remember: It's usually a bit warmer in the cities than in rural areas, where the peach trees are.

In North Carolina, early varieties of peach trees are blooming, so those could be wiped out. On the bright side, later varieties of peach and apples aren't far enough along yet in North Carolina to suffer much harm. The cold will also slow down growth in those trees, so subsequent freezes later this month might not cause as much damage.

The situation is a little more dire in further south in South Carolina and Georgia, where peaches and other fruits have progressed along more than up in North Carolina.  Peach blooms are about two weeks ahead of schedule in South Carolina.

The freeze is in progress, so it won't be clear how much damage there is until days after the freeze ends, at least.

This isn't the type of weather disaster or event that garners headlines, like dramatic storms do, but worst case scenarios can cause many tens of millions in damages for farmers. Crop insurance helps, but it's not a cure all.

For the few of you who might be worried about how this will affect the famed cherry blossom spectacle in Washington DC, the short answer is, it won't. It is cold in Washington this week, with forecast temperatures to get as low as 20 degrees tonight and tomorrow night.

But the cherry buds are not nearly far enough along to suffer damage from the cold blast. Peak bloom in Washington is usually in late March or very early in April.

Tornado Death Toll At 23 In Worst Such Disaster Since 2013

Tornado destruction in Lee County, Alabama Sunday. Photo
by WKRG-TV via AP.

Overnight, the death toll from the tornadoes in the Southeast rose to 23, making this the nation's worst tornado disaster since the infamous EF5 Moore Oklahoma tornado in 2013.

Reports are still a little confused, but at this point it appears all of the deaths occurred in the town of Beauregard in Lee County, Alabama.

This suggests, like in Moore, all the deaths were from a single tornado. Some of the deaths from Sunday included children. Dozens of people were injured, some severely.

In all of 2018, there were only 10 deaths nationwide from tornadoes, the lowest number in history. So, in a matter of minutes in just one town Sunday, there were more than twice as many deaths from tornadoes than all of last year.  Our lucky streak with twisters is tragically over. (There was another death from a tornado in the South last month.)

In all, there were 39 reports of tornadoes in the Southeast yesterday, though that number will change as damage is assessed and meteorologists figure out which damage was caused by tornadoes and which destruction was caused by straight line winds.

As high as Sunday's death toll was, I'm sure it would have been worse if not for excellent forecasting and warnings from the National Weather Service.

A large cell tower fell across this highway in Alabama
during Sunday's tornadoes.

Lee County was among the areas known to be at highest risk of tornadoes yesterday. The tornado struck the county at around 2:20 p.m. Sunday.

At 1 p.m., the Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma put out a statement saying a supercell thunderstorm east of Montgomery, Alabama was heading into a zone very favorable for tornadoes and warned a strong tornado in or near Lee County was a good possibility within 30 to 60 minutes. This is well before there was any sign of an actual tornado..

At 1:58 p.m., the National Weather Service office in Birmingham, Alabama issued a tornado warning that included Lee County. At 2:09 p.m., that office upgraded the warning to a tornado emergency, which signaled to people this is a very big, serious deal. Then the tornado roared through the area about 2:20 to 2:30 p.m.

That is as good a series of warnings as humanly possible.

Another thing to note: I don't know if this happened or not, but if people were looking for visual confirmation of the tornado as it approached, they might have been caught unprotected until it was too late. Like many tornadoes, especially in the Southeast, this one was wrapped in rain, and hard to see.

Plus, again like many strong tornadoes, this to the naked eye didn't have classic funnel shape, but looked like a mass of angry black clouds. There's the potential to underestimate things when they look like that.

However, my guess is most people who died were actually sheltering in places like closets and bathtubs, but the tornado was so strong those protections were not enough.

There's no doubt the tornado was powerful. There's one report that a sign from a billboard was blown nearly 20 miles from its starting point.

There were plenty of other tornadoes or storms that looked like they would produce tornadoes. At one point, I counted a dozen simultaneous tornado warnings in central and southern Georgia. It's amazing the National Weather Service was able to keep track of them all.

On the negative side, there were dozens of posts on social media complaining all those warnings were interrupting coverage of a golf tournament on TV. So I guess to some people, a few tornado deaths are worth it, if one gets to enjoy a televised golf tournament.

This tornado outbreak is over. However, the current weather pattern favors more severe weather and tornadoes. The next chance is this coming weekend, probably in the southern Plains, lower Mississippi Valley and maybe the Gulf Coast states.

I'm guessing that round of severe weather won't be as bad as what happened Sunday, but you never know.

Next up, videos. Here's a storm chaser's encounter with the Lee County monster tornado:



Here's raw video of the utter destruction, and the search for victims:

Breaking: Many Tornadoes In Georgia, Alabama. It's Quite An Outbreak

Extreme tornado damage in Lee County, Alabama

8 PM UPDATE

The death toll from the tornado in Lee County, Alabama has risen to 14.

That means there were more tornado deaths in one county in one afternoon than in all of the United States in the entire year of 2018.

Last year was a record low for tornado deaths, but sadly, that trend has not continued into 2019.

Today's death toll could easily rise, as people search for victims. Plus, in the past hour, possible tornadoes touched down near Columbia, South Carolina and Tallahassee, Florida. There were also signs on radar that a possibly strong tornado roared right through Cairo, Georgia. We don't have an immediate confirmation of that, though.

Judging from the damage in photographs and video from Lee County, Alabama, this was probably an EF-4 tornado.  EF4s and EF5s are the strongest tornadoes possible and are responsible for most tornado deaths.

If the Alabama tornado was an EF4, it will be the nation's first one since April, 2017. That is an unusually long time for the United States to go without such a strong tornado.

6:30 PM UPDATE: WSFA-TV is now reporting ten fatalities from the tornadoes in Lee County Alabama.

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION:

It's shaping up to be a terrible tornado day in Alabama and Georgia, as tornado warnings have been firing off left and right all afternoon.

There are at least two confirmed fatalities in Beauregard, Alabama, television station WRBL reports. Photos coming out of that area show houses either destroyed or with major damage.

Details on damage and injuries were very sketchy as of 6:30 p.m., which is typical when an outbreak of twisters is still in progress. Most everybody is wisely busy warning people in the path of tornadoes instead of detailing what's already happened.

A video, which you can see at the bottom of this post, shows numerous houses in Lee County completely leveled. Watching the video, you pray that the people who lived in those houses weren't home when the tornado struck.

Fox 5 in Atlanta is reporting there were at least two reports of "large and extremely dangerous" tornadoes this afternoon. One of those giant tornadoes was reported not far from Auburn, Alabama shortly after 3 p.m. this afternoon. Less than 45 minutes later, another big, very dangerous tornad was south of Macon, racing toward the northeast at 60 mph.

Other tornadoes were reported near Huber, Georgia and south of Hamilton, Georgia. Some of the tornado warnings had "particularly dangerous situation" wording attached to them, which means these aren't weak, mildly damaging tornadoes, but ones that could be devastating if they roared through a town or neighborhood.

At 4:15 p.m. today I counted no fewer than 12 simultaneous tornado warnings in central and southern Georgia, so that's a very dense packet of tornadic storms. Which means it's a dangerous situation for sure.

A person named Evan on Twitter posted this photo
inside his home this afternoon, with the message, "I need
prayers. Tornado just destroyed my house. 

As of 6:30 p.m. there are 18 confirmed tornadoes in Alabama and Georgia. I'm sure many other reports will come in, as this is an ongoing situation. Plus, it sometimes takes as much as 24 hours to confirm a storm in any one location was a tornado or something else, like ferocious straight line winds.

National Weather Service offices in Georgia are so overwhelmed with trying to issue timely warnings that the NWS office down in Key West, Florida, is assisting with warnings up in Georgia. (There's no severe weather around Key West.)

Video on social media showed a very wide, wedge-shaped tornado moving through Smiths Station, Alabama.

Other photos on social media showed houses leveled in Talbotton, Georgia by a tornado. There's no word yet on casualties in that town.

This is a developing story, so hit this post from time to time, as there will very likely be updates.

Extreme destruction in this video from Lee County, Alabama. As you'll see, houses are leveled.
You can also tell by the narrator's voice that he is stunned and overwhelmed. No surprise there:


Video: Tornado near Warner Robbins, Georgia this afternoon.

 

Category 4 Hurricane Matthew A Dangerous Worst Case Scenario

Satellite view of extremely powerful Hurricane Michael as
it approached the Florida Panhandle this morning. 

I was a little worried yesterday that Hurricane Michael might end up being more powerful than forecast.

Unfortuately, it's more powerful than expected. Much more powerful.

Hurricane Michael was a Category 4 storm with top winds of 145 mph as of 7 a.m. today.

Worse, it was still strengthening as of 8 a.m. this morning. The tops of the clouds near the eye of the storm were getting colder, which is a sure sign of strenthening. The central air pressure of Michael was also falling, meaning it's getting stronger.

If Michael comes ashore with 145 mph winds, it will be among the ten strongest hurricanes to make landfall anywhere in the United States. The area where it hits - probably near Panaman City - will never look the same.

To think that just five days ago, Michael seemed like a distant, minor threat. Now, it's a cataclysm. Another one in an era that has brought us some of the most destructive  hurricanes in U.S. history: This list is getting long and depressing: Harvey, Irma, Maria, Matthew. Sandy, Irene

The outer winds of Hurricane Michael were coming ashore in the Florida this morning. As I noted yesterday, this area has had a lot of hurricanes over the years. But this one is the strongest in memory.
A category 4 hurricane has never come ashore in the Florida Panhandle in records dating back to at least 1851.

The National Weather Service in Tallahassee put it starkly enough: "This will be a catastropjic event the likes of which this region has never seen."

The 145 mph winds will cover a relatively small area, as they do in most strong hurricanes. But destructive hurricane force winds will  cover a wide area. As of early this morning, the hurricane force winds extended out 45 miles from the center of Michael. Tropical storm force winds extended out 185 miles from the center.

The winds of all hurricanes diminish fairly quickly once they come ashore. But Michael is so powerful it will take quite awhile for the winds to spin down. That means hurricane force winds will plow into Georgia and tropical storm force winds will go all the way up into the Carolinas.  Michael will then pass off the East Coast by early Friday morning.

Best guesses are more than a million people will lose electricity from Florida to North Carolina.

Hurricane winds are often the most visually dramatic aspects of storms like Michael. We'll see a lot of  videos of it, I'm sure,since this storm is coming ashore during daylight hours.

Radar imagery of Michael at
7:10 a.m. today. 

However, storm surges are the most dangerous and most deadly aspects of hurricanes. The storm surge associated with super strong Michael will be beyond awful.  When the storm was still well off shore early this morning, Apalachicola, Florida had its fourth highest tide on record.

When the storm comes in, the storm surge will be ridiculous. If the storm comes ashore at high tide, the surge could be as much as 13 feet above normal levels.

Anybody who didn't evacuate from the storm surge zone will very likely die.  Storm surges flow violently, and have battering waves from the hurricane winds to boot. The water will also be laden with debris as it plows into shoreline neighborhoods.

I hope everybody is away from the coast by now. The mayor of Tallahassee, Florida said this morning it's now too late to evacuate. People just have to hunker down and hope for the best.

All hurricanes produce torrential rain. There will be stripe of four to eight inches of rain, with locally higher amount from the Florida Panhandle, across central Georgia, and into the Carolinas and southeastern Virginia.

As you remember, the Carolinas are still dealing with the catastrophic flooding and its aftermath from Hurricane Florence.  As of this morning, a southeasterly air flow off the Atlantic Ocean, arranged in part by the position of Michael, was dumping heavy showers on South Carolina.

This is going to be another extreme disaster. This, in a year we've had far too many.

Tornadoes, Severe Weather, Floods Continue To Slam Much Of Nation

A fire station in Carrollton, Georgia lost its roof in a
tornado Monday. You can see a brief video of the roof
flying off at the bottom of this post. Photo from
Channel 2 Action News

Yesterday was another busy day in the nation's severe weather department, just as it was over the weekend and just as it will be in the next couple of days.

The worst of it yesterday was in Georgia, where there were 24 preliminary reports of tornadoes and widespread damage.

The storm system that spawned those tornadoes is what's giving much of New England a cold rain today, and Maine yet another winter storm. 

We're moving into the heart of the United States tornado season now, and we'll have plenty of dangerous weather in various parts of the nation during the severe weather season peak, now througn May and into June.

There's a bit of a lull in the action today between storms, though severe storms, hail and a few tornadoes could fire up later today in Oklahoma, Arkansas and parts of the Deep South. 

A very strong storm will ramp up the severe weather again on Wednesday with another widespread outbreak.

Once again, Georgia seems to be most at risk for tornadoes Wednesday, but a large area across the Ohio and Tennessee River Valleys, and most of the Southeast are also under the gun.

The storm will create a risk of severe weather  in the Mid-Atlantic states Thursday. Up here in the Northeast, we won't have much in the way of severe weather, but count on a bunch of rain, a flooding risk and strong, gusty winds here in Vermont and the rest of New England Thursday and Friday from this thing.

Below are some videos:

Here's security camera video of a narrow but intense tornado flipping a car at a Lafayette, Louisiana car repair shop:




Here's a very brief view of a tornado tearing the roof off a fire station:


And, Ooops! A tornado uncovered a pot growing operation in a state where growing pot is illegal. Watch:

Deadly Southern Tornado Outbreak Getting Even Worse Today

Shines McMorris in the ruins of her Hattiesburg home.
She, her husband and two children were in the house
when a tornado tore it apart, but thankfully, they were
 not hurt. Photo by Rogelio Solis/AP

Tornadoes in the South continued last night as expected, but today could very well feature some, huge, very disastrous tornadoes that would make the ones over the past couple of days look like child's play.

NOAA's Storm Prediction Center has placed northern Florida and southern Georgia under a high risk of severe weather. That's the highest level of alert on five level scale of alarm.

A high risk zone for severe weather is rather rare, maybe only happening a couple times a year anywhere in the nation, except in the odd years when tornadoes are unusually frequent.

A high risk zone in January is extremely rare since major tornado outbreaks are rare in the dead of winter. (April through June are the peak months for this sort of thing.)

Some of the tornadoes that break out today in southern Alabama, most anywhere in Georgia, the north half of Florida, and later, in South Carolina and southern North Carolina, could be intense, long lasting and have an incredibly fast forward motion.

This is obviously dangerous for several reasons. The area under alert is fairly highly populated. Cities in the high risk area include Tallahassee, Jacksonville and Gainsville, Florida and Savannah and Albany, Georgia.

A surrounding area of moderate risk, (the second highest alert level) might also get these super intense tornadoes. Some of the ciities in this zone are even more populous ones like Tampa, St. Petersburg and Clearwater, Florida, and Columbia and Charleston, South Carolina.

When you're under a tornado warning, the safest place to be is in the basement, or if you don't have a basement, a first floor, interior room with no windows, like a bathroom or closet.

A dorm room at William Carey University trashed
by a tornado Saturday morning. Photo by Rogelio Solia/AP

For most tornadoes, you're safe if go to these places. But you're not necessarily safe in super intense tornadoes as homes would be completely leveled and things could actually be sucked out of basements.

Also, if a tornado is moving along at a very fast forward speed, as many of today's tornadoes will likely do, people won't have a lot of time to take shelter.

Already, there have been at least 30 reports of tornadoes in the past couple of days, with at least 15 fatalities reported. 

As noted yesterday, four people died in and around Hattiesburg, Mississippi as a strong early morning tornado tore through that region.

The Associated Press just had a breaking news alert that 11 people had died and 23 were injured this morning in central and southern Georgia tornadoes.

Many houses are in ruins. A church in Petal, Mississippi was destroyed two years after another tornado did the same.

As of 9 a.m. Sunday, tornado warnings were still up southern Georgia as a nasty band of supercell thunderstorms moved through. The Georgia storms are the second round of severe weather that developed with this storm system.

The first was the Saturday morning and afternoon round that caused the Hattiesburg tornado and spread damage from Louisiana to Georgia.

The second band, over south Georgia and northern Florida this Sunday morning, originated in east Texas and dropped tornadoes and severe weather from Texas, through the Gulf Coast states to Florida.

The third and most potentially most dangerous band, which I've already discussed, will fire up in southern Alabama and the Florida panhandle later this morning and spread northeastward into Georgia and the rest of northern Florida into the Carolinas. (There were signs this was already starting to happen as of 9 a.m. Sunday)

The severe weather will move off the coast tonight as the parent storm system will consolidate into a nor'easter and move up the coast.

While the effects of the storm won't be nearly as dire in the Northeast as they are in the Southeast, high wind warnings and flood watches are already up for parts of coastal New England for Monday as the storm heads in that direction.

Here's some videos:

Damage in Petal, Mississippi



Operation Chase filmed a large tornado and very big, damaging hail late Saturday afternoon near Vivian, Louisiana, close to the Texas border:




Here's drone footage of Hattiesburg by Sam McAlister. It includes views of severe damage to William Carey University:

Maybe Matthew Was (Almost) As Bad As People Feared

Wreckage in Daytona Beach, Florida after Matthew.  

UPDATE, 2 P.M.  EDT SATURDAY

Hurricane Matthew is beginning to turn into an extratropical storm, as opposed to a hurricane, and that's bad for North Carolina in particular.

When this kind of thing happens along the coast, the heaviest rains usually fall northwest of the center. That's where North Carolina is.

And these rains during a transitioning storm are often horribly torrential. As is the case today.

A good foot of rain or more is likely to fall on parts of South Carolina eastern North Carolina. Rainfall rates are as high as four inches per hour in the state this afternoon.

What we have, then, is another extreme flash flood disaster. Just like South Carolina had last October. And numerous locations in the United States and around the world are having with increasing frequency.

The ironic thing is the worst U.S. damage from Hurricane Matthew might be coming this afternoon, when winds are falling below hurricane strength.

It's EXTREMELY dangerous in North Carolina now. If you are in that area, don't travel unless you must evacuate, or have been told to evacuate by local emergency managers.

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION

There was a whiff of complaining yesterday as Hurricane Matthew decided not to barrel into Florida with destructive force, but instead paralleled the coast, causing plenty of misery but not apocalyptic ruin in any one place.

I'm not sure what people were whining about. It's a good thing it wasn't worse. I guess they're saying that the warnings were overblown.

But all along, forecasters said the storm might stay offshore, lessening the damage. They always say, plan for worst case and hope for the best.

The worst case didn't happen, but what did happen wasn't the best.

Matthew will still be one of the costliest hurricanes in U.S. history, not because it devastated any one city, but because it caused damage in a long stretch of heavily populated coastline.

As I wrote this at 7 a.m. EDT Saturday, Matthew's eye wall was in Charleston, South Carolina, causing wind damage, and worse, a damaging storm surge.  The storm eventually made landfall near McClellanville, South Carolina late Saturday morning.

Matthew's storm surge has been causing most of the damage. (See videos of the surge at the bottom of this post.)

Cities like Daytona Beach, St. Augustine, Jacksonville and Savannah have all suffered storm surge flooding from Matthew. That's a lot of businesses, homes, cars and other property that's been damaged.

This car floated out of a driveway in St. Augustine, Florida during
Matthew's storm surge. Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images 

Add to that the wind damage in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina: Roofing stripped from houses, trees falling and crashing into buildings, power lines shredded, windows busted out, siding peeled away.

So far at least five people have died in the United States from Matthew's effects. The death toll down in Haiti is soaring, up past 800 at last check. This is truly a terrible disaster.

Matthew will continue along the South Carolina and North Carolina coasts today, creating more destructive storm surges inland flooding and wind damage

Videos: First is a view from a Jacksonville high rise of the storm surge engulfing that city:




Here is a security camera view from inside a Florida home as a storm surge smacks into it. The occupants of the home had wisely evacuated before the storm:


Next up, a storm surge view from inside a St. Augustine, Florida bed and breakfast:

European City On Lockdown After Extreme Flood Frees Dangerous Zoo Animals

A hippo that excaped from a zoo during
an extreme flood in Tbilisi, Georgia this
week stands in the water in the city's downtown.  

In this year of catastrophic floods that seems to be happening with alarming frequency around the globe, another really bad one hit Tibilisi, the capital of the country of Georgia.

The city, home to 1.1 million people or so, was battered by extreme rains and extreme floods that killed at least 10 people in the past couple of days.

The entire city is also on lockdown, because the flood swept through the Tibilis Zoo, freeing all kinds of dangerous animals.

Among the animals that escaped are eight bears, 20 wolves, eight lions, white tigers, jackals and jaguars, according to the Daily Mail. 

Video and photos show people trying to corral a large hippo in devastated downtown Tbilisi. Another photo shows a bear stranded on an apartment building air conditioning unit by the flooding.

An escaped bear clings to a second floor
air conditioning unit at a flood-wrecked
apartment block in Tbilisi, Georgia. 

Sadly, many of the animals died in the flooding.  Only three of the zoo's 17 penguins survived.

(Warning: The link to the Daily Mail includes very heartrending photos of lions and tigers and other animals killed by the flooding)  Other animals had to be shot, city officials reported, because they were menacing people.

At last report, it was unclear whether all the surviving animals that had escaped had been found.

The flooding also destroyed dozens of homes and many people have been left homeless.

The devastation came after extremely torrential rains fell on the area, turning a small river into a huge torrent that swept through much of Tbilisi and surrounding areas.

This video shows chaos and rescues in Tbilisi amid the flash flood:



The next video shows animals loose on the streets of Tbilisi, and destruction to the city: