Finding a safespot in a hurricane

2 min readJul 8, 2021

When a hurricane or tropical storm hits close to home, it can be hard to process the information available and take appropriate actions to insure one’s safety. The information is not all located in one place, and often consists of complicated maps and jargon. This can increase cognitive load and anxiety in a stressful situation.

I recently had the opportunity to work with a great collaborative team with data scientists, software engineers, and user experience specialists to create an app to help people in this situation.

The SafeSpot app aims to consolidate and simplify the necessary information for the user, including current storm location, size, category and wind speed, all watches and warnings currently in effect (as well as changes to watches and warning since the last update), an interactive map to determine one’s evacuation zone, an interactive emergency checklist, and a map tool for finding available shelters and directions to them.

SafeSpot debuted in the first week of July, 2021, and was successful in providing info for Hurricane / Tropical Storm Elsa. It is currently avaiable for residents of Florida (USA).

I really hope you find it useful!