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Safety Alerts

Safety Alerts is an optional connector that adds current weather, earthquake and major-disaster information to the map. It also checks one selected area for nearby alerts in your feed. It is separate from Moments: alerts have no author, reactions, energy cost or $MAIN reward.

This first version works only while Main's World is open. It does not send background emergency notifications.

Turn it on​

Open Backstage → App Connections → Safety Alerts and switch it on.

The settings show the one area used for nearby matching:

  • Live while MW is open follows the phone's current location. MW rounds the coordinate to about 1 km and does not save it to your Main.
  • Saved keeps one rounded area in your connector settings until you update it, switch back to live location or turn off the connector.

Choose the nearby radius, minimum severity and alert types you want in the nearby feed. The radius is a filter, not a claim that an incident affects the whole circle.

What appears on the map​

The top-right world switcher controls a worldwide Safety Alerts overlay. When it is on, MW draws all current records with usable map geometry from the connected sources—not only records near your selected area. You can explore an earthquake or disaster on the other side of the world without subscribing to that place.

Your selected area, radius, severity and alert-type settings control the nearby feed. They do not hide records from the worldwide map. Turning the map overlay off does not turn the connector or its nearby results off.

Only current active data appears today. Current alerts are hidden when you rewind the map because historical replay is not available yet.

Where alerts come from​

  • National Weather Service for active US weather alerts. Some alerts use a warning area; others are matched to an NWS zone.
  • USGS for earthquake event information. A marker is an epicenter, not the full affected area.
  • GDACS for international disaster assessments aggregated from multiple sources. GDACS context is not necessarily a local government warning.

Every alert keeps its issuer, time, geography description, attribution and a link to the source details.

Location and privacy​

For a live area, MW sends an authenticated request containing a coordinate rounded to two decimal places—roughly 1 km. It is used for nearby matching and an NWS zone lookup. It is not attached to your Main in storage. A short-lived server cache may keep the rounded lookup for up to 30 minutes.

A saved area uses the same precision but remains in your connector preferences until you replace or remove it.

Important limits​

Safety Alerts can be delayed, incomplete or temporarily unavailable. Source outages are labeled, and data that has not refreshed successfully for 30 minutes is hidden rather than presented as current.

Safety Alerts is not a replacement for 911, local emergency services, Wireless Emergency Alerts or instructions from local authorities. If you are in danger, call or text the emergency number for your location.

This version does not yet include dedicated AMBER alerts, FEMA IPAWS coverage, 911 dispatch data, responder messaging or civilian photo submissions.

Planned next​

  • Named watch areas: follow several places such as Home, Parents or School, each with its own radius, alert types, severity and notification settings.
  • Historical replay: show source records appropriate to the date and map area being viewed. USGS earthquake history is the clearest starting point; weather and disaster archives have different coverage and delay rules.
  • Background notifications: notify only for watched places after MW has durable delivery, deduplication, quiet hours, cancellation handling and an auditable opt-in.

Until those ship, Safety Alerts watches one live or saved area and works only while MW is open.

If your alert area looks wrong​

  1. Return to Backstage → App Connections → Safety Alerts.
  2. Check whether the area says Live or Saved.
  3. For live matching, return to the map and use its location button.
  4. For a fixed place, stand there and choose Save this area, or update the existing saved area to your current location.

Turning the map overlay off hides alert shapes and markers, but the selected area remains visible in the connector settings.