Early Warning System for Charlestown, Nevis

• Kristen Kacich
• Jared Miranda
• J’Heannhehbelle Rosier

Advisors: Miiri Kotche, PhD, Anthony E. Felder, PhD

Sponsor: Janet Lin, PhD

Caribbean residents are prone to a variety of disasters including hurricanes and floods. Early warning systems are used to convey risk knowledge, monitor disasters, give a response to disasters and communicate information in a succinct and actionable way. One of the most common and efficient early warning systems is a warning siren that gives audio messages to residents, however, the Caribbean town of Charlestown, Nevis, currently does not have a warning siren. An outdoor speaker was innovated to act as a warning siren with audio messaging capability. Current warning sirens on the market can only store a certain amount of pre-recorded audio messages and are very expensive. However, this warning siren was created using a low-cost speaker and amplifier, making this warning siren cheaper. The warning siren has a pre-recorded audio interface that includes hurricane and flood warnings, but also a live audio interface that allows the user to record their own messages. The interfaces were created using Arduino, Raspberry Pi and JavaScript. In order for the warning siren to be audible across Charlestown, the sound intensity of the output audio must be at least 98.84 dB from 100 ft away. In order to test that our prototype operates at the given frequency range, five trial runs were performed on both audio interfaces and the sound intensity of each trial run was collected. The standard deviation was calculated and we expect that 95% of the gathered data (two standard deviations away from the mean) to be at least 98.84 dB. Having a warning siren that has a great enough sound intensity will allow the residents of Charlestown to listen to warnings about any potential disasters and will lead to the residents being better prepared for when the disaster strikes.

See supporting documentation in the team’s Box drive.