

Crowd sourced tornado early warning app - Avleen

I got pretty tired of watching people dying because they didn't know tornados were headed their way — that's about as terrible a tragedy as we can get given that we have the technology to prevent it. So I did what any developer would: wrote an app.<p>Tornado Alert is a community-driven tornado early warning system.
Alerts from news sources can take several minutes to appear, and if you lose power you may not have access to the news.
With Tornado Alert, any user can submit a tornado warning to other users within 10 miles that there is a tornado close to them.
Alerts are normally delivered in under 5 seconds — about 60 — 100 times faster than news organizations tend to report them.<p>The app is, and will remain completely free, and it only gets better as more people use it.
Currently Android-only. iPhone version is pending.<p>https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.silverwraith.tornadowatch<p>http://silverwraith.com/blog/2012/03/tornado-alert-app/
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damoncali
Email me when the iPhone version is ready. Address in profile.

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Avleen
Certainly will!

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rprasad
Most of the people who died from tornados over the past few months _knew_ the
tornados were headed their way or were in the vicinity. The problem was that
they were unable to leave their homes in time because the tornado touched down
too close, rendering it more dangerous to leave for a secure shelter (i.e.,
malls or schools, which must be fortified against tornado damage) than to
simply remain put and hope the tornado(s) missed them. The death toll in the
Henryville outbreak in early March was caused by a supercell storm system
which produced a large number of F4 multiple-vortex tornados (one F4 tornado
surrounded by numerous smaller tornados of varying strengths). Multiple-vortex
tornados are especially dangerous because they affect a much larger area.

In the Midwest they use tornado warning sirens to alert the populace to
tornados. The sirens have several forms of power and are really freaking loud.
They're also extremely quick to sound these alarms, since they've had decades
of practice at this. They use a combination of sources for this, so that the
alarms are usually sounded within seconds of a tornado sighting.

The problem in a nutshell with this app is that anyone who does not hear the
tornado warning siren will not be in a position to notice the alert from the
app. Also, without a mechanism for updating the tornados, it may actually
cause more harm than good: for example, if tornados are not cleared from the
app quickly enough, people may be deterred from seeking shelter by the
presence of a tornado that is no longer there.

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Avleen
You're partly correct. (fwiw, I will in an area that gets tornado producing
storms and I know just what you mean about the sirens.)

There are multiple problems which I'm trying to address here:

First is that of warning. The sirens are great, and they do mostly work.
Meteorologists do a fantastic job of predicting storms and their velocity, but
getting that information out is _hard_. If I'm asleep and I hear the sirens,
that acts as a general warning. I can dive into a basement or tornado shelter,
but then getting further information is difficult. Yes, you can buy self
powered radios, but you know that many people simply don't. But everyone will
cling the to their phones like they're made of gold, so we should make use of
that.

Second is getting information back out. An upcoming feature is to report back
to places like Facebook, Twitter, and other networks that you're close to a
tornado. This lets your friends and family know what is going on, and to many
people this is important too.

Third is more information. Laura Myers at Mississippi State University has
conducted interviews with several thousand people regarding their behaviour
during a tornado watch. The striking thing is that everyone wants confirmation
before they act. Sirens alone aren't enough for most people, they want more
information. They want to know they're _directly_ in the path of real
tornados. This app is here to help bridge that gap. If the sirens go off and
people around are reporting that real tornados are touching down, I hope this
helps give those people even more motivation to get moving to their safe spot.
The sirens SHOULD be enough, but we all know they're not and human behaviour
doesn't work like that :-)

So, at the end of the day, if this helps save even a single life, I think it's
worth it. It won't be able to save everyone, but every bit helps, and this
lets us all help our neighbours, and our community.

