Adopt-a-Hydrant is an app that maps the locations of fire hydrants so volunteers can find and dig them out during snow storms.
During the winter, storms often hide fire hydrants under piles of snow making them impossible to find quickly. Once they are found, fire fighters must spend precious minutes shoveling out hydrants before they can starting putting out the fire. With thousands of fire hydrants, most cities simply don't have the resources to shovel them all out. Hence, crowd-sourcing.
If one or two people on each block pledged to shovel out a fire hydrant after it snows, the problem would be solved. The Adopt a Hydrant application was designed to coordinate that effort, to ensure that every hydrant in the city has a “parent” to care for it.
Much like the fire hydrants it aims to protect, the Adopt a Hydrant software is free for any city to adopt. Just add data.
To deploy Adopt a Hydrant, all you need is the precise coordinates—latitude and longitude—of every fire hydrant in your city.
