Labor Day Weekend Travelers Can Use New Smartphone Technology to Stay Weather Safe Without Texting On the Road

News provided by

Federal Alliance for Safe Homes (FLASH)

Aug 30, 2013, 05:00 ET

FLASH Weather Alerts App provides voice warnings that allow drivers to track weather without distracting and dangerous texting

TALLAHASSEE. Fla., Aug. 30, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- With AAA projecting 34.1 million Americans to hit the road this weekend, the Federal Alliance for Safe Homes (FLASH)® is urging them to practice safe driving and stay ahead of severe weather with FLASH Weather Alerts. The fast, customizable, GPS-precision smartphone app will follow U.S. travelers wherever they go and provide a verbal forecast as well as voice push notifications with more than 100 options --- including tornadoes, severe thunderstorms, flash floods, rip currents, marine warnings and more. The app, available for both iPhone and Android devices, is currently included as a key disaster preparedness resource by Consumer Reports.

According to FLASH President and CEO Leslie Chapman-Henderson, "FLASH Weather Alerts is the only smartphone app that will travel with you and provide all the weather information you need without dangerous driver distractions because it is hands-free. Alerts are spoken not sent via texts. This means that families are safer on the way to their holiday destinations as well as when they arrive."

FLASH Weather Alerts offers much more than a traditional, $30 NOAA Weather Radio for a one-time price of $7.99 including:

An award-winning iMap platform that incorporates the only known, text-to-speech technology to deliver spoken weather notifications, helping users receive alerts while driving and avoid violation of "texting while driving" laws;
Apple Push Notification/Google Play Notification services, the fastest way to transmit alerts and deliver National Weather Service severe weather notifications;
Alerts based on the polygon issued by the National Weather Service combined with the GPS-precision that provides alerting down to the zip code, even when in motion;
Text or text-to-speech, seven day and hourly forecasts for current location plus five additional locations.

FLASH Weather Alerts also offers unique hurricane season resources in English and Spanish. Users can use the app to track storms, receive watch and warning updates, view live streams from the National Hurricane Center and access DIY hurricane preparedness information.

For more information about FLASH Weather Alerts, visit www.flashweatheralerts.org. For multi-peril disaster preparedness and mitigation information, visit www.flash.org.

About FLASH
The nonprofit Federal Alliance for Safe Homes (FLASH)^® is the country's leading consumer advocate for strengthening homes and safeguarding families from natural and manmade disasters. FLASH collaborates with more than 100 innovative and diverse partners that share its vision of making America a more disaster-resilient nation including: BASF, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Florida Division of Emergency Management, The Home Depot®, International Code Council, Kohler® Generators, National Weather Service, Portland Cement Association, RenaissanceRe, Simpson Strong-Tie®, State Farm™, USAA® and WeatherPredict Consulting Inc. In 2008, FLASH opened the interactive weather experience StormStruck: A Tale of Two Homes located at the INNOVENTIONS Attraction at Epcot® at the Walt Disney World® Resort in Lake Buena Vista, FL. Learn more about FLASH and its free consumer resources by visiting http://www.flash.org or calling (877) 221- SAFE (7233).

SOURCE Federal Alliance for Safe Homes (FLASH)