Project Pitch

Project Pitch

Despite widespread recognition that simple preparedness measures can save lives and help people weather major disasters, few people follow disaster preparedness steps put out by the CDC, the American Red Cross, and other organizations. At the same time, when disasters strike, responding agencies struggle to communicate effectively to affected individuals. Boulder recently underwent major flooding events and is currently looking at longer term strategies to increase the resilience of the city to future events. Our project will be a simple smartphone app that will seek to capitalize on the attention disasters are currently receiving by building a tool that 1: lets users enter simple information about their address, household size and composition, and other relevant information and receive basic guidelines on how best to prepare themselves and their families for emergencies; 2: receive news and alerts from the Boulder Office of Emergency Management during times of crisis; and 3: Send basic communications to friends and family expressing their situation or needs during emergencies. We hypothesize that by capitalizing on people’s current interest in disasters and desire to stay informed during emergencies, they will be willing to download the app. Once installed, the tool can be used to encourage them to follow basic precautions to prepare for the next disaster.