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I built a Red Flag Warning zone-check tool for the East Bay in 48h

I built a Red Flag Warning zone-check tool for the East Bay in 48h

by vedant28t·Jun 11, 2026·6 points·3 comments

AI Analysis

●●SolidShip ItSolve My ProblemCozy

48-hour build during actual emergency closes alert-vs-polygon gap for half a million residents.

Strengths
  • Real-time NWS polygon + Genasys evacuation zone lookup in one place
  • Edge functions mean instant results with no backend latency
  • MIT licensed with public API docs for developers to extend
Weaknesses
  • Only works for East Bay/Alameda County, not scalable to other regions
  • Limited utility outside fire season windows
Category
Target Audience

East Bay residents, especially those in fire-prone hills

Similar To

FEMA App · Watch Duty · PulsePoint

Post Description

Hey HN. I'm a high schooler in Fremont, CA. Tuesday morning I got a county-wide AC Alert text telling everyone in Alameda County to prepare a go-bag for an East Bay Hills Red Flag Warning that starts tonight at 11 PM. The text went to ~half a million phones. The actual NWS warning polygon only covers East Bay Hills (NWS zone CAZ515). Most people who got the text don't need a go-bag tonight. Some in the hills don't realize how close they are. I built this in 48 hours to close that specific gap: type your address, get a yes/no on whether the NWS polygon covers it, your Genasys evacuation zone, tonight's wind + humidity at your point, a plain-English action checklist, a per-school decision view for East Bay districts, and a one-tap iMessage buddy-check template for a hill-neighbor at 10:30 PM.

Stack: TypeScript on Vercel edge functions, NWS api.weather.gov, US Census geocoder, Genasys Protect for evacuation zones. Free, no signup, no tracking, MIT licensed. Public REST API + OpenAPI 3.1 spec at https://redflag-check.info/docs. Source: https://github.com/vedant-f-is-ma/redflag-check.

Today an Oakland Firesafe Council director emailed me critiquing the "outside the polygon" framing as falsely reassuring — wind-driven fires don't respect polygons (1991 Oakland Hills, Lahaina, Palisades). I shipped a fix in an hour and the wording across every surface now reflects that. Open to any other critique.

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