New Brunswickers who are concerned about spring flooding can now find more up-to-date information on potential risks through a newly developed app.
The River Watch app is a new, mobile-friendly way people living along the Saint John River Basin can access data from the province’s Emergency Measures Organization in a simpler way.
Civic Tech volunteers in Fredericton created the app using open-data from the provincial government.
Volunteers Bernie Connors and Christine Harvie helped create the site to help New Brunswickers better interpret where flooding could occur and how high water levels are across the province.
The province had an app previously, but it wasn’t available on mobile devices.
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“We’ve known for a while that the original River Watch app was not mobile-compatible, so I’ve actually had this idea in my back pocket for about four years. I sketched out a design to make the app more mobile-friendly,” Connors said.
New Brunswick’s Minister of Justice and Public Safety Denis Landry attended the launch on Thursday and said he is thrilled with the app and will use it himself when travelling near waterways.
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“I’m surprised and amazed to see what they’ve done with the data that they have and we were not even expecting somebody would do such a thing,” Landry said.
He said it’s important for New Brunswickers to be informed about flooding risks and said this allows them to have faster access to information, especially if they don’t have access to a computer.
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Users can visit the website from any device, click on their location of choice and view information on water levels.
Harvie said Civic Tech volunteers are people who have an interest in technology and a background in it. She said they have weekly meetings to brainstorm solutions to problems they want to try and solve.
She said there was no cost to develop the app because it uses already-existing data from the province.
“We’re using free tools. We’re using things like Google Maps so it’s been entirely free to build and it will continue to be free, both to us and of course to the public, but no costs at all,” Harvie said.
New Brunswick EMO director Greg MacCallum said now is the time of year people need to start paying closer attention to water levels. MacCallum said the app is “very valuable” to the public.
“People make their daily life decisions based on what their travel plans are, if there’s a threat to their property, what they need to do to be prepared to go about their daily lives, this is one more piece of the building blocks… of keeping people informed so they can make informed decisions,” MacCallum said.
He said there was a demand for the information to be available on mobile phones and he said the EMO welcomes the initiative to help get the information into the hands of New Brunswickers.
MacCallum said there are no current flooding risks, but said people need to stay off the ice and avoid snowmobiling on waterways.
He said the current “nice-by-day” and “cold-by-night” weather is good for a slow melt which lowers the risk of flooding.
Harvie said the app is currently only accessible by web browser, but said they are looking at potentially releasing another version down the road that could be available through smartphone app stores.
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