LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA — Watch Duty, a nonprofit disaster-awareness application, has introduced a new flood alert feature as a free update. The platform sends push notifications to users near designated flood zones who enable location tracking.
This update marks the second disaster type added to its platform. The organization previously issued flood warnings on a case-by-case basis before this full system integration. The new feature prioritizes floodplain locations and current water levels over granular local incident details.
Users of the application can locate the nearest water-level monitoring buoy and configure push notifications for threshold alerts. Data for U.S. flooding originates from various agencies, including FEMA, the National Weather Service, the U.S. Geological Survey, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Chief executive officer John Mills said, "The difference with floods is we do have more warning. So frankly, it's a little bit easier in some regards." He added, "With Watch Duty, you can start to piece together a bunch of information all on one screen to make an informed decision." Mills noted the feature was always part of the organization's plans.
Founded in 2021, the organization initially focused on California wildfires, providing real-time updates during events such as the Palisades and Eaton fires in Los Angeles. The service has since expanded its coverage across the entire U.S. The application combines the efforts of paid employees and volunteers to monitor emergency responder radio channels and translate the information into user alerts. In April, it partnered with Google.org to develop artificial intelligence tools for automatically transcribing emergency radio traffic. The organization also formed a partnership with Amazon Ring cameras, enabling users near a fire to share video footage within the app. The organization has doubled its staff and leadership headcount, and will focus exclusively on natural disaster monitoring, not incorporating police radio signals for crime reporting.
No independent assessment of Watch Duty’s claims was available.