Background
On March 17, 2021 the town of Sapphire in Central Queensland suffered a significant flood event, with Retreat Creek rising 10 meters in a matter of hours. The flood warning siren as part of the flood warning system in the town failed to sound, and residents awoke to major flooding.
The Problem
The town is remotely located and without strong mobile signals, emergency services were largely unaware that the town was experiencing a potentially serious flood event.
That morning, Queensland Fire and Emergency Services (QFES) received a notification that a member of the public was in distress, advising their home has been flooded to the roof and they needed emergency assistance.
Poor mobile coverage meant QFES lost contact with this person part way through the call. The full circumstances had not been established and they were unsure what type of service was required.
The Solution
FloodMapp NowCast was deployed at state-wide scale across Queensland and provided real time mapping of the flood event. As QFES had pinpointed the location of the failed call, NowCast real-time inundation mapping data was used to quickly determine that the caller was well away from the floodwaters and could be accessed and recovered by road.
The Outcome
This vital intelligence in real-time enhanced decision making and ultimately saved tasking a specialist rescue helicopter when none was needed. The rescue helicopter then continued to be available for high priority tasking and saved significant time and cost.
FloodMapp modeling operated to fulfill the gap in situational awareness that could not be delivered from probability-based static flood inundation maps. On the ground validation demonstrated FloodMapp performed with a high degree of accuracy.
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FAQ
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What is FloodMapp's point of difference?We offer a world-first model for scalable, real-time flood mapping. Our proprietary modelling software, DASH, delivers street level flood impact extents across whole states or countries. Where current flood warnings advise of the time and height of a predicted flood peak, our model will predict which specific properties or assets on a street will be impacted or show those that currently are or were previously impacted. FloodMapp’s products support all phases of the emergency management process, enabling situational awareness before, during and after a flood. We’re different because we understand that every flood is different and dynamic. We focus on modelling all phases of a flood event to answer the questions "Where is it going to flood, and what people, property and critical infrastructure will be impacted?”, "What is the extent of the flooding right now?" and "What was the maximum extent of the flood?" We bridge the gap in situational awareness by providing automatic updates of flood impact extent every hour, 24/7, as the flood event unfolds.
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What locations do you provide coverage in?We have growing operational coverage in Australia and the United States, with new regions coming online each week. If you are interested in other areas of the world, please contact us to register your interest.
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How accurate are your results?Our products are built for emergency managers and their peers, with a focus on modelling flood extents in real-time to provide round-the-clock situational awareness. We validate our models based on a variety of publicly and client-provided sources. A large-scale review showed FloodMapp models correctly identify up to 85% of inundated properties, when compared to state government damage assessment datasets.
