Flooded Roadway Warning System
This overview was generated with AI from the public sources listed below and checked against them before publication. It has not had a complete human fact-check — treat it as a starting point and follow the sources.
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Since 2000, Dallas has let a float switch — not a person — decide when a low-water crossing is too dangerous to drive through, flipping the sign and paging crews automatically before anyone calls it in.
what does this mean?
The strongest source is the operator's or the city's own reporting — an official report, dataset or press release. It grades who did the looking — not how well the project went. All four grades →Part of 1001 Smart Cities — 1,167 documented projects · 🏙️ 6 more in Dallas · 🌊 Flood resilience guide · 🌱 Environment projects
Since April 25, 2000, the City of Dallas has run a network of solar-powered sensors at low-water crossings that automatically activate roadside warning signs when floodwater reaches the roadway. Each site reports water level to a central computer roughly every 20 minutes; when a float switch detects the road is submerged, the sign switches from a static 'High Water When Flashing' notice to an actively flashing 'Do Not Enter High Water' warning, and the system pages Street Services staff to deploy barricades. The network has grown incrementally since 2000 — press coverage from 2015 and flood events into 2025 both describe it as actively operating, with a live status page (fc.dallascityhall.com) showing which sites are currently in alarm.
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📎 Cite this project
1001 Smart Cities (2026). “Flooded Roadway Warning System” — Dallas, United States. The Smart City Atlas. https://1001smartcities.org/projects/dallas-flooded-roadway-warning-system/ (last verified 2026-08-02). Data: CC BY 4.0.
The underlying data is free to reuse with attribution — see the open data page.