Flood Beacon designed by British Designer could save lives from Flooding in Jamaica

“I noticed that all the Flood Data available was purely based on predictions. No Data was available in real time and we know very little about the present state of Floods until it's too late”

British Designer Samuel Cox explaining how he designed the Flood Beacon

Not every bit of innovation in Technology comes from kickstarters in America. In fact, there are those whose innovative genius also hails from the faire Isles of Britannia and I'd like to highlight the genius of British Design and his invention of the Flood Beacon  as declared in “Flood Beacon warns of danger in real time”, published April 24, 2014 11:09 AM PDT by Amanda Kooser, CNET News.

The above intro tells the story in part, but what gets me interested is the fact that the Flood Beacon can transmit live Data.

This makes it a lifesaver and making it another example of an Internet connected device  that is in the same useful vein as the Nest Protect Internet connected Smoke Alarm as reported in “NEST PROTECT, A SMART SMOKE DETECTOR THAT ISN’T ANNOYING”, published October 8, 2013 By Drew Prindle, DigitalTrends  and Nest Protect: Thermostat Start-Up Now Wants to Make Your Smoke Detector, published Oct. 8, 2013 By JOANNA STERN, ABC News.

The Nest Smoke Detector is a Wi-Fi Connected smoke alarm that alerts its owner via the email, text or push notifications to an App that there is a fire at their premises. This gadget designed by Samuel Cox does the same thing, but for Floods instead.

The Flood Beacon does it thing via using sonar to determine the height of the water it's in after being anchored in a river at a Flood-prone area. The Solar powered gadget allows it to basically operate forever, until eaten by Crocodiles. The main information that it sends out in real time is very vital and should be of interest to Town and City Local Government:

1.      Water Level

2.      GPS coordinates,

3.      Direction of Water movements

This Data can be then be graphed and used to calculate how fast the water is rising in certain areas and thus determine if Flooding is a possibility in certain areas. More on the tech side, it can be mapped and made into a 3D representation of the area to show visually how the Flooding in an area is progressing.

Once deployed in rivers, lakes, and floodplains, it would send live real-time Data alerts or push notifications which would apparently transmitted over a Telecom Providers GSM (Global System Mobile) GPRS (Global Packet Radio System) or EDGE (Enhanced Data for GSM Evolution) Network or even as Voice chirps or SMS (Short Messaging Services) Text messages.

This Data would be received by Transmitters and their individual Data processed by Servers, based on preset levels of water and water flow. If there is an indication that a flood is imminent, it will alert the Local Government NOC (Network Operation Center) or the National Disaster Planning agency. Thus they would then make the decision to send out alerts or radio announcements via Traditional Media i.e. Radio, Television, giving people more time to prepare and evacuate.

Flood Detector needs automation – Make it Crocodile and human proof and it’ll sell

Of course this gadget isn't without its problems before it would ever get road tested in Jamaica. It has some inherent maintenance issues which would make it a hard sell, even to Local Government Councils and businesses in the UK to mass produce the device.

First is the fact that it would be very attractive to thieves after the manpower was expended to anchor them in place, something a re-design could solve. Then there is the collection and maintenance of Servers for all that live Data. 

It would be best automated in order to make it possible to automatically alert people of flooding instead of Local Governments having to have someone watching the Data coming in and then sending out an alert.

Such an adjustment would basically be handing over trust to a machine, something I'm not fond of personally and so neither would City Councilors. Especially as I'm not so fond of Bots on the Internet already as noted in my Geezam blog article entitled “61% of all Traffic on the Internet is generated by bots”.

No cost was given for his gadget or any estimates on the cost of deployment, but until it's Crocodile proof, it'll still be a target for 2-foot crocodile in Jamaica interested in stealing its rechargeable batteries and mini Solar panel kit it has built in, which are surely attractive to anyone with an interest in stealing these parts.

But the fact that it may take some of the workload off the hands of town and City Administrators by automating the alerting of people of Flooding Disasters would eventually be what sells this product.

Throw in app for smartphones now that Jamaicans are slowly getting into the swing of things as it relates to smartphones and we have a gadget that’s set to be a lifesaver not just in the UK but potentially worldwide, including here in the Crocodile infested Rivers of Jamaica.