Watch Duty Is Adding Flood Alerts to Its Wildfire App
Watch Duty, the wildfire alert app, is introducing flood alerts to its popular disaster-awareness service. This is the second disaster type to be broadly included, after wildfires; it’s available as a free update. If you have the app, allow it to track your location, and happen to be near a flood zone, Watch Duty will send you a push notification with more information about the flood.
The nonprofit started in 2021 with a focus on California’s wildfires. The app has since expanded to the entire US, where it uses a combination of paid employee “reporters” and many more volunteers who monitor emergency responder radio channels and translate that information about disaster zones to app users.
Watch Duty became a critical resourceduring the Palisades and Eaton fires in Los Angeles last year, providing real-time information about the fire’s movements that users came to rely on. In the year since,...
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