An app created by former Hutt Valley High School students became the first port of call for many people needing information after the November 14 earthquake.
During the flooding and aftershocks of the 7.8 Kaikoura earthquake the Wellington Now app collected vital information on quakes, weather and traffic to report to users.
Nick Hyland, Rakshana Premasiri and Dipesh Patel created the app in July 2015. They were in their final year at Hutt Valley High and the app was their business studies project. Since then it has had more than 5000 downloads on iOS.
Nineteen-year-old Hyland said they could see the effects of the disasters through people using their app.
“During natural disasters such as storms and earthquakes, downloads spike dramatically and app usage can increase by up to 600 per cent," he said.
Hyland and the team also ran a blog during the disasters to help summarise the most important information.
The idea for Wellington Now originally came from wanting to streamline multiple sources of information.
“Wellington Now aims to be the hub for everything Wellington," he said.
The app takes information from websites such as metlink.org.nz and eventfinda.co.nz to create a one-stop shop of information. Two months ago the second version was released.
The app was completely rebuilt from the ground up.
“Version two builds on what we learnt over 2015 and incorporates many new features suggested from our users."
The developers haven’t finished with it yet either. Hyland said they planned to update it in the future to include important news articles from sources such as Civil Defence, New Zealand Police and local councils.
Push notifications were in the works to alert users of accidents, earthquakes and public transport disruptions.
An Android version of the app had also been planned.
Hyland’s former business studies teacher Fiona MacAlpine said she was really proud of the work achieved by her students. Along with the Wellington Now team she also taught Lilia Alexander, the 19-year-old founder of the Wellington LIVE Facebook page.