BlockByBlock
A hyperlocal severe-weather prep assistant that turns NWS alerts into a household-specific action plan — what to do in the next 30 minutes based on who's home and what your building can handle.
NYC-area households, especially renters, families with kids, and seniors who live in storm-vulnerable buildings
- Household profile (kids, elderly, pets, mobility issues, top-floor apartment, basement apartment) generates a tailored checklist when an alert fires
- 'Next 30 minutes' timeline view: move car, charge devices, secure balcony items, shelter location
- Post-storm damage triage: photo + voice prompt produces a checklist for filing with management, insurance, and 311
- Building-specific memory — remembers your flood-prone basement or west-facing windows across events
With a high tornado threat called for the tri-state Saturday, NYC residents are scrambling for actionable prep — and generic 'shelter in place' language doesn't help a 14th-floor renter or a basement dweller differently.
NYC tornado warning searches spike (confirmed via source trend) and NWS publishes apartment-specific tornado PDFs, but core need is largely met for free by Notify NYC (NYC.gov) and NWS alerts.Notify NYC: Tornado Warning - NYC.gov ↗Apartments TORNADO SAFETY - National Weather Service ↗
Crowded: WeatherReady.app is explicitly an 'AI Weather Preparedness Coach' — essentially the same product. Plus WeatherAI, Skyla.ai (1Weather), Klever Weather, and Hyperlocal Weather app all overlap.WeatherReady - AI Weather Preparedness Coach ↗WeatherAI - Forecast & Radar - App Store ↗Skyla.ai - Apps on Google Play ↗
Weather.com Premium and AccuWeather Premium+ show users pay for weather, but free NWS data, free Notify NYC alerts, and ad-free WeatherWise compress willingness to pay for a prep-focused slice.Weather Premium | weather.com ↗AccuWeather introduces Premium+ tier of award-winning app ↗WeatherWise - The Severe Weather App ↗
Severe-weather frequency is rising with climate change and NWS is a stable public data source, but usage is inherently event-driven — users churn between storms — which caps LTV.Custom Weather Notifications — Hyperlocal Weather ↗
Trivial to build: NWS api.weather.gov is free and well-documented, LLMs handle the personalization layer, and household/building profile is just a form. Main work is data plumbing, not novel AI.