Topic: disaster alarm widget suggestions

I am in a tornado area and a widget that sounds an audio tornado alarm (for the area of the user) would help save lives. It would be like the weather radios, but since the chumby is always on, it is a prime candidate for this sort of thing.  A special weather alarm widget could be designed that covers thunderstorms, hurricanes or tornadoes each with special sounds.  The screen can also be made to flash red and white for those can't hear the alarm or if the sound is off.  There are probably other disaster alarms that can be made along the same lines like civil defense, floods, fire, volcano, avalanche, etc.

Re: disaster alarm widget suggestions

I was thinking the exact same thing. On my nightstand right now is a weather alert radio, phone and an old PDA I am using for quick internet access. I am hoping I can replace all three of these with a Chumby. I will keep the weather alert radio, just move it somewhere else in the house. The problem I can see is that if the Chumby is in night mode, the widgets stop playing correct? So then you would not have this functionality at night, when it is needed most.

-HuckFinn

Re: disaster alarm widget suggestions

Hi wfk530,

Is there a website that would broadcast this information? If so, I'm sure I or someone in the community could put something together. If you can find a website that does local and/or national info like this, that would help.

iBrent

Re: disaster alarm widget suggestions

FYI, the National Weather Service has RSS weather feeds, and has text warnings that could be parsed, like these guys are doing (http://kamala.cod.edu/svr/).

Re: disaster alarm widget suggestions

I think having a setting for emergencies is an excellent idea.  Is the best practice truly to poll for information? 
Frankly, I would hope there was something better than polling because in an emergency, every minute counts.