As US flood alerts lit up phones, did ‘warning fatigue’ set in?

Headstones at a cemetery that flooded are seen in Somerville, New Jersey. A stunned US East Coast faced a rising death toll, surging rivers, tornado damage and continuing calls for rescue Thursday after the remnants of Hurricane Ida walloped the region with record-breaking rain, drowning more than two dozen people in their homes and cars. — AP

NEW YORK: Cellphones across New York and New Jersey pulsed with urgent warnings of catastrophic flooding as the fury of Hurricane Ida’s remnants, carrying torrential rains, approached upper New Jersey and New York City on Wednesday.

The first alerts of severe weather blared across millions of phones at 8.41pm that night when the National Weather Service warned of dangerous flash flooding from the looming storm. Officials would issue three more alerts, late into the night, urging people to immediately head for higher ground and to stay out of rising floodwaters.