As hurricane season commences, fast growing tech startups FloodMapp and Catalyst Technologies have announced a new partnership with the integration of their products NowCast and iluminr. FloodMapp, the leader in real-time flood modelling, will deliver NowCast via iluminr, a next generation critical event management platform that combines (near) real-time threat feeds with highly intuitive response and communication toolsets.
This partnership provides emergency responders with access to high-resolution, real-time flood mapping, overlayed with other impacting threats such as power outages and COVID-19.
In the US alone, Congress budgets $54 billion annually for hurricane and flood damage, and these losses are projected to keep climbing. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center is forecasting a 60% chance of an above-normal season. with a likely range of 13 to 20 named storms predicted, of which up to 10 could become hurricanes. (NOAA).
With dispersed workforces and compounding threats such as COVID, each year’s hurricane season is becoming more complex to manage, stretching emergency management resources totheir limits. Legacy approaches are simply not keeping pace with today’s growing demands.
“The integration of iluminr and NowCast is an absolute gamechanger for the Emergency Management community. Teams will for the first time have access to high resolution flood data, delivered and managed in the market’s most intuitive Emergency Response platform, iluminr” said Joshua Shields, CEO and Co-Founder of Catalyst Technologies, the developers of iluminr.
The situational awareness delivered by NowCast and iluminr allows emergency response teams to make good decisions instantly and coordinate often limited resources to where it’s need most for evacuations and asset protection. This ultimately has major safety and economic implications saving both lives and millions in economic losses.
“Loss of life, safety incidents and damage during floods are caused because individuals and businesses who do not understand that they or their assets are at risk. This is because current flood forecasting systems and data provided are too broad, and aren’t integrated in real time with the mapping tools used by individuals and businesses today.” said Ms Murphy.
Until now, many Emergency Managers have had to source intelligence from a broad array of applications, often with very low resolution, in the attempt to create situational awareness. The response would then be managed via disparate systems built for a pre-COVID environment.
By integrating NowCast into iluminr, teams can now geospatially map high resolution flood exposure against compounding threats and create a single operating picture in minutes. By combining threat intelligence with next generation communications and event rooms, iluminr empowers teams to be the first to know of impending threats and have the tools and communication channels necessary to engage their people and guide them to safety.
NowCast and iluminr are already operational in the USA and Australia, working with government agencies, financial institutions, utilities, logistics companies and insurers.
Background:
iluminr, powered by Catalyst Technologies, is the world’s most intuitive critical event management platform. Through threat data aggregation, intuitive design and a modern approach to communications, iluminr has set a new bar in response technology for the post-COVID world.
FloodMapp is on a mission to improve safety and prevent damage on a global scale. Its vision is to ultimately offer products in all countries that suffer from flooding, to help governments and businesses everywhere become more resilient to flooding and adapt to a changing climate.
Flooding is a huge issue affecting millions of people around the world. In the US alone, Congress budgets $54 Billion annually for hurricane and flood damage and these losses are projected to keep climbing.
The World Bank estimates that at least 35% of flood damages are preventable with better warning systems. Preventable flood damage includes lost lives, vehicles, business and retail supply chain issues, economic losses, safety incidents, misrouting and poor logistics, business interruption and lost productivity, flooded mobile and immovable assets and operational inefficiency.
