By Arielle Stevenson, University Communications & Marketing
When heavy rain starts covering roads, Barnali Dixon wants residents to know where there is flooding before they get there.
She calls the idea, “WAZE for flooding.”
“We have created WAZE for flooding, because this system allows you to tell your neighbors what roads are flooded,” Dixon told residents at a recent Storm Squad workshop in Lealman.
Dixon, a professor of GIS and remote sensing at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg, leads the team behind CRIS-HAZARD, a community-based flood monitoring system that combines reports from residents with a network of cameras tracking flooding across Pinellas County.
Development of CRIS-HAZARD began in 2023, after Dixon received a $1.5 million National Science Foundation grant. A Flood Report app soft-launched in September 2024, just days before Hurricane Helene. Somewhat similar to the WAZE navigation and live traffic platform, it combines crowdsourced photos with artificial intelligence to track flood conditions in real time and help residents identify potential dangers.
Since then, the monitoring network has grown from eight cameras during the 2024 Hurricane season to 40 cameras today. Twenty-one cameras are in St. Pete city limits, with additional cameras located in nearby areas like Pinellas Park. The newest camera was installed in Clam Bayou, one of the areas that experienced profound flooding during the 2024 storms.
Like others in the network, it is a small solar-powered infrared camera that takes images every 15 minutes. Reflective markers placed in six-inch increments help researchers and residents estimate water depth.
Eight cameras installed in September 2024, continued gathering images as Hurricane Helene flooded parts of St. Petersburg.
“Throughout the city and county, we have 40 cameras that actually monitor flooding,” Dixon said.
The cameras are only one source of information. Residents use the free Flood Report app to submit geolocated photos of flooded streets and neighborhoods, giving researchers and other users a view of conditions that may not be captured by a nearby camera.
For Dixon, the value comes from combining what residents see with what the camera monitoring network records.
“First, we know the problem areas from the cameras and app, and we tell the city, county and whoever is going to listen: look, there are some problems here,” Dixon said.
Her team is also developing a public-facing dashboard intended to bring camera data and resident reports together in one place. The goal is to make it easier for people to see conditions across an area rather than relying only on what is happening immediately around them.
That information can also be useful after residents evacuate. Camera images can provide a sense of whether water has receded in a neighborhood and what conditions may look like before someone returns home.
The city of St. Petersburg is helping fill gaps in the camera network. At a City Council meeting in July, Councilmember Brandi Gabbard highlighted an agreement to add another camera to Clam Bayou and Riviera Bay as areas where additional monitoring is needed. The council unanimously approved the agreement.
Users can upload pictures to the app, such as this one posted on September 26, 2024 near St. Pete Beach.
Technology is only one part of the project. Dixon and her partners are also working to build a network of residents who can share information, identify neighborhood needs and connect others with storm resources. At the recent Storm Squad meeting, about 20 residents filled out surveys, learned about preparedness resources and were encouraged to become neighborhood representatives.
“The mission of Storm Squad is to get resources and information to the community to increase community preparedness and increase resilience,” Erica Hall, Storm Squad executive director, told attendees. “So, we call that neighbors helping neighbors.”
Storm Squad works to develop neighborhood leaders, organize community conversations and gather information about the challenges residents face.
“We organize community conversations such as we’re doing now, bring resources to the community and conduct surveys so that data-driven policy decisions can be made,” Hall said.
Those surveys give Dixon’s team another view of what communities are experiencing. Cameras and resident photos can document flood conditions, while residents can describe needs and problems that may not be visible from an image. But the 40-camera network may be nearing its limit. Dixon’s three-year federal grant has funded the existing buildout, and additional cameras would require another source of funding.
For now, the next phase is focused on making better use of information already being collected through cameras, the Flood Report app and Storm Squad. And most importantly, getting that information to the residents and decision-makers in communities when they need it most.
“Your ability to prepare and bounce back is related to how much information and resources you have access to,” Dixon said.
For Dixon, that’s the larger purpose of the project: using university research to give communities more knowledge, more ways to communicate their experiences and more tools to prepare for the next storm.