Pinellas County, Florida, is now tracking rising water and flooding through a network of cameras paired with a community reporting app, but the funding is set to expire in 2026.
Here’s what to know
The Florida county has 37 flood-monitoring cameras that send information to Flood Report — a web app described as “WAZE for flooding” — connected to cameras installed across Pinellas County after years of University of South Florida research, where residents can upload real-time flood photos, as WMNF reported. Most of those cameras are located in St. Petersburg.
Because hurricanes and summer thunderstorms frequently cause flooding in St. Petersburg, the project is meant to give people a live look at roads and low-lying areas instead of leaving them to rely only on forecasts or static maps.
Barnali Dixon, a University of South Florida professor leading the project, secured a $1.5 million U.S. National Science Foundation grant in 2023 for the project, which has fully funded the build-out so far. “Our goal over here is to collect people’s lived experience as a photograph, then use machine learning algorithms to make data out of it, so we can further validate and calibrate maps and models.”…