Canadian communities are increasingly seeking new ways to communicate information about climactic environmental hazards to their residents. At the same time, their residents are asking for more detailed information from community and regional officials than the static websites and 10-item checklist PDFs of yesteryear. Our team set out to help communities make it quicker and easier for their residents to learn about local hazards, take steps to prepare, and take informed response actions should the need arise.

The Canadian Hazards Emergency Response & Preparedness (CHERP) mobile app is the first tool resulting from a partnership between our research team at UBC and several communities on Vancouver Island. The goal of the CHERP app is to help educate community residents about hazards in their communities and assist them to create emergency plans that incorporate local hazard, planning, and emergency response information while also adapting to the unique needs of household members and pets. In this talk, Dr. Reynolds will describe some of the motivations, challenges, and goals behind the development of the CHERP app along with our plans for Phase II of the project.