alt.hn

2/3/2026 at 9:06:04 AM

Show HN: Safe-now.live – Ultra-light emergency info site (<10KB)

 https://safe-now.live

by tinuviel

2/3/2026 at 1:58:39 PM

The font size is too small for emergencies on mobile devices. You need to consider that users might be in a panic, may not have both hands free to zoom in, and their vision could be impaired by smoke or other factors.

by randomtoast

2/3/2026 at 3:01:28 PM

It is astonishing how one's motor skills degrade when the adrenaline is flowing. I once tried to dial 911 on an iPhone in such circumstances. My hands were shaking so badly I kept dialing 922, 811, 914, and so on. Terrible in the moment but a very good lesson for preparedness. I really appreciate the "dial Emergency" methods on modern phone software that just need a button held down.

by ericbarrett

2/3/2026 at 7:16:56 PM

You might find it easier to dial 112, which is also universal and works outside of the USA.

by smallerize

2/3/2026 at 7:57:27 PM

It's a much saner number, though probably easier to pocket dial as well. I'm not sure how far back it was chosen, but 112 would also dial a lot faster than 911 or 999 on a rotary phone.

by ericbarrett

2/3/2026 at 3:48:06 PM

My only complaint with hold-to-dial emergency dialing is phones with damaged or glitchy buttons (ghost presses) that trigger it accidentally. There's probably a setting to disable it, though I think its manufacturer-dependent.

by 8cvor6j844qw_d6

2/3/2026 at 3:53:36 PM

Imagine trying to navigate Hacker News in an emergency. LOL!

by drob518

2/3/2026 at 4:34:19 PM

I can actually imagine this when AWS goes down and you have to go check if AWS is down again. (Although it's not a type of medical emergency but still) xD

Though to be fair, If your prod depends on AWS and it goes down, you might be going through tons of adrenaline too as well.

by Imustaskforhelp

2/3/2026 at 4:26:12 PM

Thank you. This has been patched.

by tinuviel

2/3/2026 at 4:14:56 PM

It appears the site couldn't handle HN traffic or maybe the site owner took it down. Regardless, a project like this needs a lot of thought put into it to be something that people can rely on during times of crisis.

If it can't handle a surge in traffic from HN, it won't be able to handle a surge during natural disasters.

by hypeatei

2/3/2026 at 4:39:33 PM

The site is light enough to handle traffic spikes from HN. The site was being patched based on feedback here. You should see it up and running.

by tinuviel

2/3/2026 at 4:28:08 PM

Works for me 10 minutes after your post. I'm happy to be part of the unintended load test.

by LeifCarrotson

2/3/2026 at 4:32:14 PM

It's working for me after 16 minutes of your comment & someone else mentions how it works after 10 minutes of your comment.

by Imustaskforhelp

2/3/2026 at 6:16:28 PM

Something working after a spike doesn't tell you much anything about how it did during the spike. At best, it's a hint that maybe the server did not physically burn to the ground, but even that is not for certain.

by Etheryte

2/3/2026 at 3:01:11 PM

Others have mentioned this but looks like fires from close to ~20 years ago are still showing up as "active emergencies"[0]. Shows the Nash Ranch fire as an active emergency but it was declared in 2008.

[0]: https://safe-now.live/c/us/co/colorado-springs/

by _fat_santa

2/3/2026 at 3:37:32 PM

AI didn't know we are not interested in 20 year old fires.

by DeathArrow

2/3/2026 at 4:26:34 PM

Thank you. This is fixed.

by tinuviel

2/4/2026 at 5:09:44 AM

I really appreciate lightweight software, including websites. I don't need them, but I really, really like them. they have a certain feeling that I can't describe, but it's great.

by Jotalea

2/3/2026 at 7:39:02 PM

From an accessibility perspective, the HTML emoji might be an issue for screen readers.

You can still keep them as `h2#foo::before{content: "emoji ";}` CSS pseudo-elements instead, if memory serves.

(Used "emoji" as a placeholder to ensure it renders in the example.)

Great project; (way) more websites should look like this.

by kmfrk

2/3/2026 at 10:04:13 AM

I would suggest increasing font-size, looks too small

by doterobcn

2/3/2026 at 10:43:18 AM

I think the default target is expecting a smaller screen mobile device, hence the 13px default. This is a good idea, and any other screen sizes that see smaller text can still zoom in using default browser behaviors.

by Brajeshwar

2/3/2026 at 1:07:56 PM

I disagree. When I saw the page, I thought, "Finally an information dense page again! It's been so long since they've been common and I miss them."

by torgoguys

2/3/2026 at 2:16:50 PM

I disagree with your disagreement, for example HN is readable but the linked site feels too small for my eyes on a 21.5" 1080p monitor. It also doesn't respect browser preferences, unless you enforce a minimum font size (which can break display elements on other sites):

  font-family: Calibri, Candara, Segoe UI, Optima, Arial, sans-serif;
  font-size: 13px;
If the dev wanted a similar effect by default but be more accommodating, they could do:

  font-family: Calibri, Candara, Segoe UI, Optima, Arial, sans-serif;
  font-size: 0.8125rem;
There's no reason why you couldn't have smaller font while still respecting browser scaling. However, they might also want to just leave it at 1 rem and let the folks that prefer higher information density to customize their own browser settings, since those are what most well developed sites should respect and it might be more accessible by default on most devices (for my eyes, at the very least).

As for targeting specific screen sizes for non-standard font scaling, media queries also would help!

In regards to missing information dense pages, try changing your browser font settings, it might actually be quite pleasant for you to see many sites respecting that preference!

by KronisLV

2/3/2026 at 2:27:42 PM

I agree that too many sites now will narrow the text area and pad too much. The issue here is a fixed pixel size that will look quite different depending on the specific monitor setup you have.

And honestly if this type of thing bothers you as much as it does me, unfortunately it means adding a bunch of stylus sheets everywhere...

by duskdozer

2/3/2026 at 10:44:12 AM

Agree, even just converting to use em instead of px is more usable on differing screen size/dpi

by duskdozer

2/3/2026 at 11:00:32 AM

Yup. Even on mobile the text is too small for me. In particular, the line-height could be larger so links can be tapped more easily.

Nice though, I like it.

by austinjp

2/3/2026 at 4:27:10 PM

This has been patched. Thank you.

by tinuviel

2/3/2026 at 2:46:21 PM

Normally I would say this doesn't matter much, but I wonder if a shorter domain name (or just one without a dash in it) might be in order here. I don't think I would want to be typing or remebering "safe-now.live" in an emergency

by nicoburns

2/3/2026 at 2:46:47 PM

I'm seeing fires from 1999.

https://safe-now.live/c/us/al/

by 1970-01-01

2/3/2026 at 2:56:28 PM

Well technically the agent did “build a website of the latest emergencies in every county”… it just so happens Alabama rarely has forest fires.

by cush

2/3/2026 at 3:44:00 PM

Yeah, it goes back to 2021 for California for a list of 15 fires or so - and we have 120 current ones, so probably not a good explanation.

by groby_b

2/3/2026 at 4:26:55 PM

Thank you. This has been patched.

by tinuviel

2/3/2026 at 10:02:52 PM

What would be a good book to have in the house that could help me in as many emergencies as possible, but still be portable enough to actually bring when fleeing the house or something?

Alternatively, what would be a good bigger book for the same goal and/or be more about long term survival in case of being trapped in the house long?

by mosselman

2/3/2026 at 10:46:45 PM

My gut feeling is that I'd want it to use my IP address to get as much relevant data as possible. I don't want to click into my state, then city/county. As others pointed out the font is a bit small so clicking on states is pretty tricky.

by Neywiny

2/3/2026 at 5:22:11 PM

I've been working on a similar idea for travelers, https://travelsafetydata.com/

It's pulling the travel advisories from US/CA/UK/IE/AU/NZ and aggregating the results/information to help you understand the risks of different countries. It also pulls from other sources for basic country info/risks (eg. women, lgbtq).

Yours is way lighter weight and focused, very cool!

by ohashi

2/4/2026 at 5:27:59 AM

https://travelsafetydata.com/country/SE

How are these "scams & fraud"?

> Make sure your health insurance plan provides coverage overseas. Most care providers overseas only accept credit card payments. See our webpage for more information on insurance overseas. Visit the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for more information on the type of insurance you should consider before you travel overseas.

> Gas stations in rural areas can be far apart. Some stations are unattended and require a credit card with a chip to purchase fuel.

Same with https://travelsafetydata.com/country/NO

It lists child protection laws as "scams & fraud"

by KomoD

2/3/2026 at 6:37:15 PM

Lol what the heck? Both UK and France are getting yellow flags because of terrorism. Seems absurd to me but perhaps it's good to get multiple viewpoints.

by rjh29

2/4/2026 at 12:56:17 AM

What is absurd about that?

by 936966931646863

2/3/2026 at 8:57:54 PM

Great but icons fail to render on Mosaic, Netscape and other web 1.0 browsers. Apart from that: great

by iberator

2/4/2026 at 3:45:55 AM

Where does the weather data come from?

by Lord_Zero

2/3/2026 at 5:17:18 PM

I love this kind of thing - I'm always building lists and reference things, but IME people generally don't gravitate towards things like this.

That said, I really want a backcountry version of this. I live in Tahoe and our relationship to incoming storms (lightning) is pretty different than those in the Rockies. Plus bears and other predators (how to behave). Etc.

I once wanted to do something similar w/r/t tap water and drinkability.

Fun/neat.

by browningstreet

2/3/2026 at 4:15:19 PM

Such a page has both dynamic and static information in it. If you don't have Internet access, that static info can still be helpful. A QR code can hold 2.9 MB of data. I'm imagining a QR code that contains the static information, and a small script that checks for connection and then redirects to the full page that also has the dynamic info. A QR code on an eink screen that gets remotely updated over LoRA could even include the dynamic info.

by goda90

2/3/2026 at 4:44:04 PM

This is an interesting idea, but the very first page I looked at was wrong (current weather in Alameda county shows as 72* - it's almost 30* below that here, and the daily high in the warmest areas is projected to be 65).

Next I looked at San Francisco, and oddly it listed a bunch of minor earthquakes in San Ramon - none of which are listed in Alameda county, which is actually next to (and parts of which actually felt) those tremors.

by happyopossum

2/3/2026 at 7:32:57 PM

The weather API call has been fixed.

FEMA reported the earthquakes to be centred in San Ramon and not in Alameda. Will see how this can be handled.

by tinuviel

2/3/2026 at 4:25:58 PM

I appreciate the idea, but as others have mentioned it seems like for something like this to be useful it really needs to be well thought out and tolerant to extreme spikes in traffic.

I might be wrong here but it looked like the responses from the server are chunked, which I _think_ precludes the use of a highly optimized cache response e.g. from a CDN. Assuming that's true (very open to correction of course!) I wonder why this would be.

by shoelessone

2/3/2026 at 11:01:59 PM

Floods - remove "Don't drown" and add "Stay out of the attic". Plenty have died trying to seek shelter in an attic.

by cachvico

2/3/2026 at 11:24:43 PM

Seems to be bugged in places? I'm seeing fire alerts for new Hampshire when I pull up Minnesota.

by nosrepa

2/3/2026 at 5:25:48 PM

This is really useful! I'm planning on making a list of websites that work well with Lynx and other text based browser, specifically because people should be able to access important information regardless of how powerful their computer is

by mghackerlady

2/3/2026 at 5:44:32 PM

Probably won't break anything but you're missing <head></head> and your <footer> is outside your </body> :)

by qingcharles

2/3/2026 at 4:09:41 PM

It would be good for the specific state/province/city pages to include the same info from the ancestor pages so you only have to link to and load one page for your area.

by goda90

2/3/2026 at 12:16:25 PM

It must be able to cache it's all content in browser.

I guess to do it it properly you need to make it PWA.

by rumatoest

2/3/2026 at 2:34:58 PM

You can also just use proper HTTP cache headers. ETag and a very long Expires header.

by Croak

2/3/2026 at 4:28:19 PM

Idea is to keep it light and accessible. PWA would be data heavy. The use case is in the article linked in the post description.

by tinuviel

2/3/2026 at 4:06:28 PM

The UK emergency phone number is 999, not 112.

Ugh. Don't make a website like this without verifying the information is correct please!

by davedx

2/3/2026 at 11:48:34 PM

112 and 911 (US) work on almost every mobile phone anywhere in the world. It's part of the GSM/UMTS standard. 999 is supported with either no SIM card or a UK SIM card. See §7.1 here: https://www.ietf.org/lib/dt/documents/LIAISON/file562.pdf

They also don't require a phone to be activated in most countries. I believe there are some exceptions in EU countries, but in the US it just needs to have a working antenna and be in range of a tower.

by deceptionatd

2/3/2026 at 2:52:01 PM

I think people would be more interested in the heavy emergencies, not just the ultra light ones

by cush

2/3/2026 at 4:27:25 PM

You are correct. This has been patched.

by tinuviel

2/3/2026 at 2:35:15 PM

Nice touch to have it bilingual in Canada.

Maybe add Spanish?

by whynotmaybe

2/3/2026 at 4:21:15 PM

Seeing how it hasn't survived the HN hug of death... Not sure how you've built it but consider putting it behind a CDN or something and caching the responses, esp since you're trying to pull live data

by hobo_in_library

2/3/2026 at 6:46:51 PM

It was never down - it was being patched and redeployed based on feedback here.

Webapp is light enough to handle 10000 concurrent hits.

by tinuviel

2/4/2026 at 12:13:02 AM

I can't tell much about your infrastructure, but memcached would probably increase that by several orders of magnitude. The NGINX module is pretty simple: https://nginx.org/en/docs/http/ngx_http_memcached_module.htm...

Cloudflare with Cache-Control headers is even simpler if you're okay with adding Cloudflare as a dependency.

From an ASN lookup, it appears you're hosting on Oracle Cloud, so Cloudflare would also give you free data egress: https://blogs.oracle.com/cloud-infrastructure/why-cdn-client...

Their Always-On feature would also help if Oracle has an outage.

I like the general idea, very lightweight and more likely to remain accessible when an emergency is overloading the mobile networks.

by deceptionatd

2/3/2026 at 2:53:48 PM

Local news needs timestamps… I see stale last-week weather news. Had to click and see date from last week in the article.

by yearolinuxdsktp

2/3/2026 at 1:12:34 PM

When you drill down to active emergencies for a local area there's a ton of stuff there but it's all old. Why display it if the purpose of the site is current emergency info?

by idiotsecant

2/3/2026 at 1:28:35 PM

Are there any fema declared disasters you believe are omitted?

by Computer0

2/3/2026 at 2:02:07 PM

I think they are referring to the occurrence rate of false positives, not that of false negatives. E.g. the page for California lists back through to the Bond Fire, which was contained in 2020. The problem may stem from that the FEMA page lists the incident as a single day https://www.fema.gov/disaster/5385 so this tool doesn't set and end date like it would for https://www.fema.gov/disaster/5382

A similar kind of noise note could probably be made of the "Recent Earthquakes" section. E.g. if you select Indianapolis, IN it includes all the way down to a M2.6 which occurred in NW Tennessee 30 days ago.

by zamadatix

2/3/2026 at 4:29:26 PM

This has been patched. Thank you.

by tinuviel

2/3/2026 at 9:04:48 PM

This is an excellent idea, ill pass it along to friends in emergency management

by imwillofficial

2/3/2026 at 11:50:45 AM

great stuff!!

wish there was sth lk this this side of the pond

by lencastre

2/3/2026 at 5:04:29 PM

You need an AI angle if you want investment and up-boats.

Suggest a LLM-based chat that consumes feeds and provides a terrification-score rating letting you know how to calibrate your panic-levels, based on real data. Allow for real-time questions on how to purify water, if it's better to carry gold or ammo etc

Good luck. I'll give you 80 mil based on a 40% stake with voting rights.

by mattlondon

2/3/2026 at 3:28:52 PM

>Flood: Higher ground - Turn around, don't drown

It's hard to take a 14 year old serious ...

by moralestapia

2/3/2026 at 3:59:13 PM

In Texas we lose people every year because they think they can make it across what looks like a small, shallow creek and are swept away by water that is really much deeper. You might think, “Well, those are stupid Texans,” but we even have EMS personnel die that way. A couple years ago we lost a deputy sheriff who was patrolling and trying to monitor water levels. Her car got swept away and then pinned downstream and she drowned. “Turn around, don’t drown,” is a mantra here.

by drob518

2/3/2026 at 9:35:03 AM

Looks nice & useful. However, I'd make two versions: The one you have, and additionally a version with Javascript that is a Progressive Web App (PWA). I'm pretty sure some AI could convert the normal page into a PWA for you.

The PWA has the advantage that it will also load when the internet is down and there is no need to save the page manually.

by jonathanstrange

2/3/2026 at 6:39:14 PM

That sounds unreliable as cache can disappear. A regular mobile app would be safer.

by rjh29

2/3/2026 at 2:55:37 PM

How can it load when the internet is down?!? Doesn’t the PWA source have to be fetched? And if it’s cached, then so can be the static resources.

by yearolinuxdsktp

2/3/2026 at 3:02:49 PM

The complete web page and all resources are saved locally by the service worker. "Clear site data"/clear cookies will delete it. However, clearing the normal browser cache won't. It's overall a little more persistent than the cache for static resources. However, it needs to be installed as an app to really work offline without initial loading. Chrome will prompt you for that on Android, Linux, and Windows. Safari can also do that but makes you jump through hoops. In Firefox, the PWA will work like a page that loads even when the machine is offline.

by jonathanstrange

2/3/2026 at 2:18:59 PM

... for North America.

by freak42

2/3/2026 at 2:37:40 PM

> for North America

Correct? Straight from the text: "a text-first emergency info site for USA and Canada"

by HelloUsername