Botetourt County Unveils State-of-the-Art Flood Warning System to Protect Lives and Property

Advanced flood intelligence technology will provide early warnings to at-risk communities, serving as a model for resilience across Southwest Virginia and beyond.

BOTETOURT COUNTY, Va., July 1, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Local officials and partner organizations recently held a ribbon-cutting ceremony to launch a cutting-edge, impact-based flood warning system after the community's repeated battles with flooding.

This project, made possible by RISE and funded by the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development, has deployed an end-to-end, holistic flood warning system developed by FloodMapp, Green Stream Technologies, and The Warn Room.  The new localized system provides real-time predictive flood intelligence on which homes, public facilities, and critical infrastructure are at risk of imminent flooding, and early warnings to help protect lives and property.

In recent weeks, severe storms have caused floods that washed out roads and inundated homes in Botetourt County, underscoring the urgent need for better early warning and preparedness. The new interoperable flood warning system answers that need by delivering advanced, localized flood forecasts and timely, actionable alerts that enable authorities and residents to act before floodwaters peak. By integrating on-the-ground sensors, cutting-edge flood prediction, and improved public alert messaging, the system gives emergency managers unprecedented insight into unfolding flood situations and communicates clear warnings to the public.

Key features of the new flood warning system include:

• Smart Water Level Sensors: Green Stream Technologies has installed cost-effective flood gauges on bridges and waterways across the county. These locally made IoT sensors use ultrasonic monitoring to capture and deliver real-time water level data, allowing responders to track rising creeks and rivers. This data is vital for issuing early warnings before floods reach dangerous levels.
• Real-Time Flood Prediction: FloodMapp's data-driven forecasting platform leverages operational hydrology and hydraulic modeling, machine learning and automation to deliver live flood forecasts and flood inundation maps integrated within local emergency management systems. Officials can use Esri ArcGIS online and other tools to visualize three separate live mapping services, ForeCast, NowCast and PostCast, showing where floodwaters will rise, peak and recede and what areas or assets will be impacted before, during, and after an event, enabling faster, targeted decisions such as evacuations and road closures.
• Enhanced Alert Messaging: The Warn Room provides expert guidance to craft clear, customized flood alerts. Using evidence-based best practices, the system delivers research-backed warnings that improve communication with residents. These tailored alerts help ensure the public understands the threat and knows how to respond, thereby saving lives and reducing damage.
• Post-event damage assessment: By integrating with Botetourt County's existing GIS platforms—like ArcGIS Online and Survey123—FloodMapp PostCast can be leveraged after flood waters recede, to support first responders in the office and the field to quickly assess the impact, respond and survey the damage to get disaster support to impacted residents sooner. At the recent launch event, emergency management professionals, first responders, and planners from across the region were invited to see the system in action and provide feedback on its performance. The collaborative demonstration allowed local stakeholders to witness firsthand how the system predicts flood impacts, improves response times, and helps protect the community.

FloodMapp's Chief Technology Officer and Co-founder, Ryan Prosser—who led the launch and onboarding sessions—said, "Botetourt County has exceptional fire, police, and EMS teams committed to building resilience. It's exciting to see them leading with advanced technology through the deployment of a live, operational flood warning system to enhance preparedness and response. We're proud to collaborate with RISE, Green Stream, The Warn Room, and Botetourt County to bring this system to Southwestern Virginia."

Daniel Murray, Emergency Manager for Botetourt County, echoed the importance of the new capabilities, "In past flood events, we had general forecasts and river height estimates, but not clear insights into which specific homes and critical facilities might flood.  This advanced warning system uses local data to deliver targeted flood predictions, and what that will mean regarding impacts on the ground. With support from RISE, FloodMapp, Green Stream and The Warn Room, this initiative will help us issue actionable, location-specific alerts to protect lives and property, support first responder safety, and streamline post-flood damage assessment to better support our communities after flood events."

RISE Executive Director, Paul Robinson, PhD, emphasized the broad impact of the technology and the long-standing collaboration behind it: "FloodMapp is a three-time RISE Challenge winner and trusted partner, transforming how communities prepare for and respond to flooding, including a first-of-its-kind Waze integration in Norfolk that delivered real-time road flood alerts. This new deployment in Botetourt County builds on that success and underscores how inland and coastal flooding present distinct challenges, and opportunities, for innovative, locally tailored solutions. By combining real-time flood intelligence with clear public alerts, this system gives emergency managers the tools to act quickly and protect lives. It's exactly the kind of impact we envisioned when we launched the RISE Riverine Community Resilience Challenge."

Karen Lindquist, CEO of Green Stream, underscored the importance of localised data and collaboration in strengthening community resilience: "It's deeply rewarding to see our work supporting the people of Botetourt County, who've faced repeated flood threats with resilience and resolve. By delivering live water level data to local responders—and sharing it with VDEM and the National Weather Service—we're helping build the situational awareness communities need to respond rather than react. Our collaboration with FloodMapp, The Warn Room, and RISE has reminded us that no one can do it all alone. Real resilience comes from combining our expertise and resources with shared purpose."

This initiative, supported by the Virginia DHCD through the RISE Challenge, goes beyond installing new equipment – it aims to create a lasting flood resilience model for the region. With full funding provided for the first year of operation, the project team will work closely with Botetourt County to evaluate the system's impact and make improvements. The goal is to scale up the approach to benefit other flood-prone communities. Southwest Virginia's rural localities share similar challenges with flash flooding, and officials believe the success in Botetourt County can serve as a blueprint for strengthening flood preparedness in communities across the state and beyond.

SOURCE FloodMapp