Residents of seven Vancouver Island communities will get the chance to try out a new app, designed to help them design their own emergency plan. Intended to help with events like earthquakes, floods, or even tsunamis, the Canadian Hazards Emergency Response and Preparedness mobile app (CHERP) will help individuals and families learn about potential threats and generate plans specific to their families and needs.
Says Ryan Reynolds, a lead in the app’s development, and researcher at the University of British Columbia, of the abilities of the app, “If we have someone in a wheelchair or we have pets, or we have young children, our plans automatically manage it and then update that as people age.” In addition, the app is also designed to update with new threat information, as it becomes available – if a region is updated to now be part of a flooding threat, the app will reflect that, and update the response plan accordingly.
Reynolds notes the app also helps to simplify awareness, pointing to the frequent misunderstandings with hazard maps. Says Reynolds, “We’re not always good at reading maps. We’re not always good at understanding where those risks exist in three-dimensional space.”
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