ORANGE, Texas — A new-flood tracking app was presented to Orange City Council on Tuesday.
Developers of the app "Blupix" want to partner with the City of Orange to help provide precise, real-time information about flood levels to residents and first responders.
Residents would be able to help gather the data by uploading photos.
Users will be able to go to the Blupix app and create an account. Once that is done, users will upload a photo of the stop sign where the flooding is occurring.
The pole of the stop sign will gauge how deep the water is. Stop signs are used because they are universally the same length.
Texas A&M University Researcher and Data Scientist Bahareh Alizadeh says the artificial intelligence model will analyze the length of the submerged pole and the actual length of the pole before the flood.
"So by comparing them, we can look at the level of flood at the stop sign," she said.
The app will provide real-time precise information about flood levels, which will also help city leaders like Orange Mayor Larry Spears, Jr. make key decisions.
"Giving them an opportunity to be involved a lot of times during inclement weather, hurricanes and things like that and that nature," he said. "So, by adding them to this, and saying here is a chance to relay info on what's going on all in this Golden Triangle area, I think we will get a really good support system."
Researchers even developed another app in the Blupix family, called Blupix Pre-Flood that will collect photos of stop signs without any flooding.
"This is for places that has limited google street view data or in case of during a flood they have limited data connectivity," Alizadeh said.
These are apps that both city officials and Texas A&M researchers like Charles White say should be taken advantage of.
"950 million stop signs in America and only 10,000 flood gauges in America. So, if we turn those 950 million stop signs into flood gauges, that is the benefit," White said.
The Blupix app was previously presented to Port Arthur City Council in February.
Port Arthur Mayor Thurman Bartie say because flooding poses such a great risk in Southeast Texas, he's excited to put the new tool to work.
"I believe that we should use every resource, every instrument that we have, and for sure in a community like mine here in Port Arthur," said Bartie previously told 12News. "Now you try to be prepared or you're preparing yourself to either correct the infrastructure or do something that would actually mitigate so to speak."