The essential neighborhood network, today announced a new integration with PowerOutage.us, an organization specializing in live power outage data aggregation from utilities across the United States. This collaboration aims to provide neighbors with crucial, hyper-local power outage alerts and information, enhancing community preparedness and connectivity.
Key Features:
- Real-Time Alerts: Rolling out nationwide, this feature will notify neighbors through the Nextdoor feed when a power outage occurs in their area. Alerts will include detailed information on the outage’s cause, affected areas, the number of impacted neighbors, and estimated restoration times.
- Email Notifications: Neighbors directly affected by power outages will receive email notifications at the onset and resolution of the outage, ensuring continuous updates.
- Local Resources: The integration will help neighbors connect with local information and resources from over 6,000 public agencies on the platform. It will also facilitate mutual assistance among neighbors during outages.
“Driven by factors like increasingly extreme weather patterns and the growing pressures on local electrical grids, external data shows that weather-related power outages have increased by roughly 50% over the last 10 years,” said Jason Hwang, the Business Development Lead at Nextdoor. “Through recent surveys, we’ve learned from our neighbors that access to time-sensitive information is a top reason people turn to Nextdoor. With this new feature, we’re excited to connect our neighbors with the timely, locally relevant information they need and want, particularly as we head into what is expected to be a volatile summer for weather.”
Predictions for summer 2024 suggest unusually high temperatures and an active hurricane season, both significant contributors to power outages. Such outages can disrupt local services, impact food safety and refrigeration, pose health risks during extreme temperatures, and create serious issues for those dependent on medical devices.
This new feature will complement other Nextdoor initiatives aimed at helping communities prepare for and recover from weather-related events. Last year, Nextdoor collaborated with The Weather Company to provide hyper-local weather alerts from The Weather Channel.
Through these efforts, Nextdoor continues to reinforce its commitment to being a vital resource for neighborhood connectivity, safety, and preparedness.
