Why You Can Trust CNET 16 emergency apps for wildfires, earthquakes and other disasters
Three days of food and water isn't enough. Enlist a digital first aid kit to help you weather the next natural disaster.
Wildfire and hurricane season are here. If disaster strikes, you'll fare better if you're prepared. It's important to have essentials on hand like drinking water, nonperishable food, battery-powered flashlights and phone chargers or power banks.
What's on your phone may be just as valuable. Check out the top apps to help you before, during and after the next emergency -- whether it's a hurricane, earthquake, wildfire or flooding. Many of these Android and iOS apps work both online and off, for help during power outages or a loss of cell service.
Read more: How to prepare your home for wildfire season
What to do before an emergency
1. Weather Underground
Weather Underground (Android, iOS) is a crowdsourced information app that brings hyperlocal weather forecasts to your smartphone. You'll also find photos, interactive radar data and satellite maps.
2. Hurricane Hound
As its name implies, Hurricane Hound (Android) lets you track active hurricanes using US radar and weather satellite data.
3. Natural Disaster Monitor
Easily monitor tropical cyclones, tsunamis, floods and more as color-coded icons, differentiated by threat level, in a list or Google Maps backdrop with Natural Disaster Monitor (Android).
4. MyRadar Weather Radar
MyRadar Weather Radar (Android, iOS) provides you with timely and accurate data on approaching storms, courtesy of high-res animated weather radars and 11 different overlay graphics, including a current satellite image of cloud cover. You can also enable severe weather watches and warnings via push notifications, so you're alerted about impending thunderstorms, hurricanes and tornados.
5. First Aid: American Red Cross
Get invaluable, life-saving tips and instructions to help you and others survive everyday emergencies and natural disasters -- such as hurricanes, earthquakes and tornadoes -- with the First Aid: American Red Cross (Android, iOS) app. American Red Cross also has a slew of apps to help you during specific disasters, including Tornado (Android, iOS), Flood (Android, iOS) and Hurricane (Android, iOS).
6. Disaster Alert
Get notified about upcoming hurricanes, tropical cyclones, tsunamis, as well as floods, storms and wildfires, so you're not taken by surprise with Disaster Alert (Android, iOS).
7. ICE Medical Standard
ICE Medical Standard (Android, iOS) puts your vital health info and emergency medical contacts on your lock screen, so first responders can see it all immediately, whether you're dazed, confused or unconscious.
What to do during an emergency
8. SirenGPS
Dialing 911 from a mobile phone doesn't bring instant aid, because dispatchers need some location info to find you. SirenGPS (Android, iOS) puts them at the touch of one big red button. If your community subscribes to Siren 911, nearby first responders will receive your location and profile (emergency contacts, medical history, allergies and current medications, which you put into the app), improving your chance of being rescued in time.
9. Zello Walkie Talkie
Zello Walkie Talkie (Android, iOS) may have made the news and topped the App Store during recent hurricanes when word spread that volunteers were using it to coordinate rescue efforts. But the push-to-talk wide-range communication app is useful in more temperate times as well.
10. Kinetic Global (previously LifeLine Response)
For a subscription fee of $5 per month to Kinetic Global (Android, iOS), you'll get a more immediate emergency response (based on GPS information and cell-tower triangulation) than if you called 911 and had to explain where you were.
11. Noonlight
Noonlight offers emergency help with the press and release of a button in the Noonlight (Android, iOS) app. Basic features like that panic button are free, but there are also subscription offers of $5 or $10 for even more safety tools. With Noonlight's latest update, for $10 per month, riders and drivers of cars, bikes and scooters will also get automatic crash detection and response. Just activate the Noonlight app on your smartphone, and you are covered. Noonlight will soon launch a driver score feature to give users feedback on their driving safety.
12. Pet First Aid
Animals are people, too, especially cats and dogs. So get first-aid steps for over 25 common pet situations via text, video and images, or locate your nearest emergency vet hospital in the Pet First Aid (Android, iOS) app.
13. Emergency: Alerts
Track the places you care about with real-time disaster alerts or monitor loved ones with in-app messaging in the Emergency (Android, iOS) app.
14. Find My Family, Friends & Phone
Life360's Find My Family, Friends, Phone (Android, iOS) uses GPS location data to inform you where your registered friends and family are in real time.
What to do after an emergency
15. Facebook
Facebook (Android, iOS) may be a source of fake news, but it's a great way to notify you that your loved ones are safe, courtesy of the Safety Check feature. Make sure to mark yourself as safe as soon as you are.
16. FEMA
You've survived the disaster, but now what? The FEMA (Android, iOS) app, developed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, ensures that you find local relief centers to access key services, shelter and more.
An earlier version of this story ran on our sister site Download.com.