Watch Duty has added flood alerts to its wildfire app, turning a tool built for fires into one that can also warn users about rising water across the United States. The new coverage is available now as a free update.
The app will send a push notification if a user allows location tracking and is near a flood zone, then point them to more information about the flood. It also adds map-based flood details aimed at showing where the floodplain is and what water levels are doing.
For users in storm- and flood-prone areas, the update means one place to check for two kinds of fast-moving emergencies. Watch Duty started in 2021 with California wildfires, later expanded nationwide, and now says it is delivering real-time alerts and situational intelligence for wildfires and floods across all 50 states.
Floods are easier to monitor in one sense because water moves in more predictable ways, but they are harder to interpret in the moment because the information is scattered. Watch Duty says flood data comes from many agencies and sources, and the app is built to help people reconcile it quickly on a single screen before the situation turns.
That approach echoes what made the service stand out during the Palisades and Eaton fires in Los Angeles last year, when it became a critical resource by tracking fire movement in real time. It also helps explain the company’s reach: Watch Duty says its wildfire coverage drew more than 16 million users last year and brought new partnerships after the Los Angeles fires.
The new flood product adds another layer to that model. Users can look up the nearest buoy and set an alert for when the water hits a high enough level that flooding could become a threat. Watch Duty has reported some floods before, but those were one-off events; fully integrating flood monitoring took time, and Mills said the company wanted to begin that work in January 2025.
There is still a practical question attached to the expansion: whether the system can keep pace when major flooding hits multiple places at once. Watch Duty says it can pull together warnings, precipitation data and river gauges, but the value of the app will depend on how cleanly those pieces come together when people need a decision, not just a map.
