Navigating flooded streets is not just an inconvenience. It can be life threatening.

Last year alone, nearly a third of the 139 flood fatalities reported by the National Weather Service as of October occurred in vehicles. FloodMapp, a Brisbane, Australia-based startup and RISE’s 2020 Urban Mobility Resilience Challenge winner, aims to make avoiding watery roadway hazards easier.

“We want to see a world where no lives are lost in flood events, where people get home safe to their families and loved ones, always,” says Juliette Murphy, the company’s 34-year-old co-founder and CEO.

After witnessing the impacts of devastating floods in both Australia and Canada, the Brisbane native teamed up with Ryan Prosser to develop integrative technology that enables real-time, street level flood warnings, improving upon the more broad-based and generalized area alerts available today.

“With my flood modeling background, I saw the experience play out not just as a resident, but from an engineering perspective,” says Murphy of those 2011 and 2013 flood events. She could see the technical gaps, and the dots that needed to be connected, she adds.

“I felt a real purpose and responsibility that it was me who needed to step up and solve this problem.”

In January, drivers in Norfolk, Virginia, became the first in the world to participate in the next evolution of that technology as part of FloodMapp’s new pilot program: the integration of their NowCast flood forecast technology with the Waze navigation app. The project launched days before a significant flooding event hit the region, and for the first time, Waze users received audio alerts and pop-up icons warning them about flooded streets along their route to avoid car- and life-threatening situations.

News of the project attracted attention from more than 200 news outlets including the Associated Press, Weather Channel and Government Technology.

Since the launch, more than 3,500 drivers have used an in-app “thumbs up” feature to confirm the flood hazard alerts to help FloodMapp validate and refine their modeling capabilities. The ultimate goal is to reroute drivers around flooded roads — a feature currently in development.

RISE Innovator Spotlight

Juliette Murphy: FloodMapp co-founder and CEO