RALEIGH, N.C. — It’s Severe Weather Preparedness Week, a week dedicated to informing and preparing the public on how to react during severe weather situations. 

The City of Raleigh’s stormwater management team is utilizing an early flood detection pilot program that can monitor rainfall across the entire city, and predict flooded areas before they occur. 

Kelly Daniel is Raleigh's first Flood Early Warning System project manager. 

“What we’re trying to do is help forecast flooding that’s going to be happening across the City of Raleigh, and get our first responders out there to block off the roads and do things so people don’t drive through roads in flooding situations and conditions,” said Daniel. 

The stormwater management team has several resources in place already to help identify problem areas during storms, including 150 traffic cameras to monitor road conditions, high-flood signs, and 16 storm gauges in creeks that track water levels as they rise. 

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“When the gauge gets up within right close to the warning level, we’ll call 911 and let our first responders know that the creek level is getting close to flooding,” said Daniel. 

The pilot program that they’ve been developing over the last year can track rainfall across the entire city, and not just in the areas where the storm gauges are located. 

“The great thing about this, we know exactly across Raleigh how much it has rained in each system, where before we only knew how much it rained at the rain gauges. Not only does it show how much it rained, it can also predict how much it thinks it’s going to rain,” explained Daniels. 

The system will send alerts to Daniel and his team with predictions for potential flooding. 

“We can get alerts that let us know it's predicted to rain two inches there and we can let our first responders know that it’s possibly going to have flooding in that area in the next hour or two,” said Daniel. 

Flash flooding is one of the leading storm-related killers in the U.S. On average, 127 people die due to floods each year, and half of those fatalities are vehicle-related incidents, according to the National Weather Service. 

“It really hits home about what can happen and why we need these flood monitoring systems, so we can help prevent death and help save lives,” said Daniel.

The flood early detection pilot program is still in the development stages, but Daniel hopes they can make it a permanent resource in the next few years.