Ready Pinellas vs RainParade

Pinellas County Emergency Management’s Ready Pinellas application is a mobile disaster preparedness and decision support application designed to assist Pinellas County citizens in planning ahead, or when tropical storms approach our area, providing an outline of steps and recommendations and current information. Ready Pinellas App Features: Know Your Zone: When a tropical storm approaches it’s critical for residents to know their Evacuation Zone. It’s best to find out your zone before hurricane season so you can access your risk and make plans. As a user, you can enter your address and determine your evacuation level, the closest hotel accommodations, the closest general or special needs shelter. Note: not all shelter and hotel accommodations will be available in all storm levels. Check back with this feature when a storm is approaching. Readiness Checklist: The Readiness Checklist is a tool to provide users an easy guide for preparedness ahead of hurricane season. There is a Blue Sky Readiness Checklist for pre-storm preparations, and as a tropical storm approaches and Pinellas County is placed in the 5-day or 3-day cone as indicated by the National Hurricane Center, the app will present the 5-day Readiness Checklist and then the 3-day Readiness Checklist. Get a Plan: This feature helps citizens, businesses and special needs citizens create an emergency preparedness plan. Users can enter information about the location of their homes and businesses, family members, pets and family contact information and an individualized emergency plan will be developed that users are able to print or maintain online. Alert Pinellas: The most important step you can take to be prepared is to know when a hazard is coming. The Alert Pinellas emergency notification service allows Pinellas County to send urgent messages by voice to landlines and mobile devices, text, TDD and via email. Registration is free, and users can register each address where they live and work to get alerts for multiple locations. Storm Surge Protector: This interactive tool depicts the impact that different levels of storm surge flooding would have on a neighborhood, home or business. Users can type in their address and see a representative graphic illustration of their structure type with a depiction of the projected height of storm surge for the different evacuation levels. It also displays the specific evacuation level for the address and the amount of storm surge predicted for that evacuation level in a neighborhood view. Special Needs: Pinellas County’s special needs program is intended for those who need transportation or require minimal medical assistance while seeking public shelter. Registration for a special needs shelter is required and this feature allows users to register. Pet Preparedness: Get information on sheltering your pet, and a list of supplies needed to weather the storm. Find out information on pet collection or information about locating stray animals following a hazard event. There are also pet friendly shelters and pet coordination for special needs citizens. A link brings you to registration forms. Social Media: Follow Pinellas County on social media for general county information, breaking news, preparedness tips and real-time updates. Pinellas County All Hazards Preparedness Guide: Download a PDF version of Pinellas County’s All Hazards Guide, with information on how to prepare for and respond to hurricanes, tornadoes, flooding, lightning and manmade disasters. National Hurricane Center: Connect to the official source for worldwide tropical predictions, weather, water and climate data, and analyses of hazardous tropical weather. Find translations and podcasts.

Do you ponder how much it rained yesterday? Are you concerned about precipitation for your crops, trees, or garden? Do you wonder if this spring was wet or dry? Are you curious if the hiking trails will be wet and muddy? Is it time to water your grass or conserve the water? Are you a coach or parent concerned the field will be too wet for practice? If the amount of precipitation we get impacts your life, then RainParade will benefit you. RainParade visualizes data from CoCoRaHS under the Creative Commons License. Only high quality rain stations are shown in RainParade. You can search and favorite stations in areas that interest you the most, then view the station details. Recent precipitation totals are shown on the stations details page. The totals are broken down by month and year. The totals are compared to 30 year averages to determine if the totals are above or below the norm. Rain is essential for life and a healthy environment. You should celebrate the next time it rains on your parade. The Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow Network, is a non-profit, community-based network of volunteers who measure and report rain, hail and snow in their backyards. Volunteers use high quality rain gauges and then submit their observations using the CoCoRaHS website or apps. Observations are immediately available to the public via the CoCoRaHS Web API. CoCoRaHS is supported by many sponsors and collaborators. To view a full list please visit the CoCoRaHS Web site. Please consider donating to CoCoRaHS today! CoCoRaHS data is available under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/