NCDOT expands flood alert system to keep drivers safe

RALEIGH (WRAL) — Most deaths in the U.S. from flash flooding are because of people driving across flooded roads.

New technology is keeping drivers safer and the NCDOT is behind it.

Heavy rain drenched western North Carolina in June.

Early one morning, NCDOT engineers got an automated alert that a bridge in Polk County was in danger of flooding.

“Our internal models indicated this bridge, which had erosion problems in the past, had to be looked at right away. so we sent out that alert,” said Andrew Barksdale with the NCDOT.

Crews scrambled to the bridge, inspected it and found flooding had damaged the foundation. They closed it immediately.

That alert came from the NCDOT‘s flood warning system.

It uses data from North Carolina Emergency Management’s network of more than 500 stream gauges. It covers 2,000 miles of North Carolina roads, giving NCDOT an instant alert when flooding threatens.

“We’re able to tell if it’s about to be flooded or if the water is overtoppping it or if we predict it will flood,” Barksdale.

The NCDOT expanded the network year and is adding more gages to I-95 in the Lumberton area next year. The NCDOT said the information helps them deploy resources to respond to emergencies and most important, keep drivers safe.

“It gives us information, critical real-time information about our road network vulnerable to flooding and we can get that information before it actually happens,” Barksdale said.

The flood warning network is so successful, it could win a couple of national transportation awards, including one that you can help them win by voting.

The winner gets a $10,000 cash prize. That’s money the NCDOT, if it wins, plans to give to a North Carolina charity.