Blue Ridge Twin is building a monitoring system for the rivers above Bat Cave, Chimney Rock, and Lake Lure. We are starting with ten sensor nodes and are looking for hosts and partners. First warnings are expected November 2026. Flood alerts will be free. Measured, not assumed.
At ten junctions above Bat Cave, two waters become one, and a sensor just below each reads the combined flow. The amber lines light up, or go online providing warning, when their planned sites go in; today, nobody is watching any of it.
Drop a pin anywhere, or use your location, to see the warning you would have.
The Hickory Nut Gorge is shaped like a bowl and it funnels all the water down to the Rocky Broad River, which Bat Cave, Chimney Rock and Lake Lure share. Our network will tie together what is sensed upstream and provide warning to all three communities.
From the nearest junction sensor to the US-64 bridge, and up to two hours for water coming off the top of the basin. Ten sensors stand between the headwaters and town.
The village sits mid-gorge, where every upstream sensor buys it time. Water off the top of the basin passes every one of the ten stations on its way down the river.
The lake and the dam sit at the end of the line, with the most warning of the three. Every station reports before river water reaches the lake head, and the lake itself adds time after that.
On August 2, 2026, our pilot station on Big Reed Island Creek in the Virginia Blue Ridge rode a flash flood from the first band of rain to a 10.2-foot crest, reading the water every 15 seconds, all night, on battery, and escalated alerts from advisory at 11:30 PM to evacuate at 2:05 AM. Watch the water rise:
The station's hydrograph from that night, stage and rainfall, minute by minute. Full station data at newriverheadwaters.com.
Sensors powered by a small solar panel with a ~2-foot footprint on host land, reading stream height, rainfall, and soil saturation up to every 15 seconds.
Blue Ridge Twin fuses our stations with USGS, NWS, and FIMAN public weather and watershed data into one live picture of the watershed.
Advisory → warning → evacuate, emails/push notifications/SMS free to anyone signed up in the gorge, minutes to hours before the water arrives.
Every junction needs one host property, and on each reach one landowner gets the full station free.
Live anywhere in the gorge? Warnings go to your phone the moment the network sees trouble. Safety will never be behind a paywall.
River frontage on one of the ten reaches? The full setup is free, hardware, solar, install. You get every alert first, and your name on the map if you want it.
Watershed-scale coverage for Henderson, Rutherford, and Buncombe, briefing deck and pilot proposal available.
Fit decides who gets each setup. We read every application ourselves.
Free alerts, hosting a sensor, or helping build the network — tell us what you're after. We read every one of these ourselves and follow up personally.