As I write this, there’s a desperate search for dozens of girls, missing from a flood where the Guadalupe River rose 26 feet in 45 minutes. More than 80 people drowned at the time I sent this column. Yet critical data about this freakish weather hitting America and the rest of the world is about to go offline, at the moment in history that we need it the most. Don’t let the government withhold this lifesaving information from its people, for hurricanes, floods or other disasters.

I’m pretty familiar with the Guadalupe River. When my wife and I were college students, we went inter-tubing there. It’s normally pretty safe. But these are not normal times. There are a dozen dead already, and we can only pray that the toll will not rise from this extreme weather.

John A. Tures is a professor of political science at LaGrange College in Georgia. He can be reached at jtures@lagrange.edu. His Twitter account is @JohnTures2.