Heavy rain and flooding caused widespread damage and forced evacuations across Mississippi on Wednesday. All 31 residents of a Brandon, Mississippi assisted living facility were evacuated as up to three feet of water submerged the building. More than 100 children were also rescued as flooding encroached on a daycare facility in Florence. Two train cars — both carrying carbon dioxide — were also completely swept off the tracks. Climate change, mainly caused by the extraction and combustion of fossil fuels, makes extreme  precipitation events worse and more frequent because warmer air is able to hold, and then dump, greater quantities of rain. With more than a foot of rain falling in places, Jackson, Mississippi, broke its one-day rainfall record, almost thirty years to the day after Hurricane Andrew dumped over four inches on August 26, 1992. (CNN, Washington Post $, Clarion Ledger, ABC, NBC, AP; Climate Signals background: Extreme precipitation increase, Flooding)