Houstonians now have access to real-time street flooding thanks to TranStar and the Harris County Flood Control District. The two agencies worked together to overlay 170 flood gauges along area bayous with TranStar's current traffic map.
The feature is available on TranStar's website or mobile app.
“When it rains a little alarm goes off, a little drop appears, with a radius of about three miles and it shows where flooding is likely to occur based on the rainfall rate in that area,” says TranStar spokeswoman Dinah Massie.
Massie calls it a first-of-its-kind technology developed after Harvey.
“To be able to reach out to one of our agency partners and say 'hey, we think you have this resource that might work with us,' and to have that other agency understand the value of that partnership and pull in their data and share it with us, you can't beat that,” she says.
The new feature will at least warn users of possible street flooding so they can find a safer route.