Terms of Use

1. Acceptance of terms

By using state-of-emergency.com you agree to these terms. If you do not agree, please do not use the site.

Plain-language summary

The sections below are the operative terms. This summary is not a substitute for them, but it says the same things in fewer words:

• This site is general information, not professional advice of any kind.
• The Live Emergency Map is for situational awareness. It is not a warning system, and it does not cover every hazard.
• In an emergency, follow official instructions rather than this site.
• You may read, print and share pages for personal use, and quote briefly with attribution.
• You may not republish substantially, scrape in bulk, or strip attributions and disclosures.
• We link to third-party sites we do not control.
• The site is provided as is, with no warranty, and our liability is limited.
• Governing law and venue are not yet set and must be completed by the site owner.

Availability and changes to the site

We do not guarantee that the site or any feature of it will be available, uninterrupted or error-free. Pages, structure, URLs and features may change or be removed.

Live data depends on third-party feeds outside our control. Those feeds can be delayed, degraded or withdrawn, and a period of unavailability is a normal operating condition rather than a defect.

Accuracy and reliance

We work to be accurate and to correct what we get wrong. We do not warrant that content is complete, current or fit for your particular situation, and we cannot accept responsibility for decisions taken solely on the basis of this site.

This limitation matters most exactly where the stakes are highest: an active hazard, a medical situation, or work involving electricity, fuel or combustion. In those situations, treat this site as background reading and the relevant authority or professional as the decision-maker.

2. Intended audience

This site is written for adults in the United States making household preparedness decisions. It is not directed to children under 13.

3. Informational purpose

All content is provided for general information and education. It is not professional advice of any kind, and it is not an emergency notification service.

4. No professional advice

Nothing here is medical, legal, financial, engineering, electrical or construction advice. Consult a qualified professional for your situation.

5. Emergency and live-data limitations

Live data may be delayed, incomplete, unavailable or later revised. The Live Emergency Map does not cover every hazard and must not be relied on as a warning system. See the Emergency & Medical Disclaimer for the full statement.

What these terms cover

These terms apply to the website at state-of-emergency.com and everything served from it, including the Live Emergency Map and any downloadable checklists or templates published here.

They do not govern third-party sites we link to, retailers you buy from, or the official agencies whose data appears on the map. Those relationships are governed by their own terms.

Live data and third-party feeds

The Live Emergency Map displays data originating with the National Weather Service and the U.S. Geological Survey, and map imagery from a third-party provider.

• That data is provided by those sources on their terms, not ours.
• We do not warrant its accuracy, completeness, timeliness or availability.
• We may cache it briefly for performance, which means displayed data can lag the source.
• We may add, change or remove data sources without notice.
• The map is not a warning system and must not be used as one.

Official warnings reach you through official channels — NOAA Weather Radio, Wireless Emergency Alerts, and local emergency management. This site is a supplement to those, never a replacement.

Checklists, templates and downloads

Checklists and templates published here are provided for personal, non-commercial use. You may print them, fill them in and share them with your household.

You may not resell them, bundle them into a paid product, or redistribute them as your own work. They are provided as-is, with no warranty that they are complete or appropriate for your circumstances.

Suspension of access

We may restrict or block access where use of the site is abusive, automated at a scale that degrades service for others, or otherwise in breach of these terms. In practice this means abuse handling, not editorial disagreement.

Entire agreement and waiver

These terms, together with the policies they reference, are the entire agreement between you and State of Emergency regarding use of this site.

If we do not enforce a provision on one occasion, that is not a waiver of the right to enforce it later.

6. Intellectual property

Original text, layout, design and graphics on this site belong to State of Emergency, except where material is credited to a third party. Official government data and documents remain subject to their own terms.

7. Permitted use

You may read, print and share pages for personal, non-commercial use, and quote briefly with attribution and a link.

8. Prohibited use

• republishing substantial portions without permission
• automated scraping or bulk extraction that burdens the service
• removing attributions or disclosures
• presenting our content as your own
• any use that interferes with the site's operation or security
• using the site in a way that misleads others about official emergency guidance

Access and acceptable use in detail

This site is published for individual readers. Access is offered on the understanding that it is used the way a reader would use it.

Reasonable use includes reading pages, printing them, saving them for offline reference, sharing links, and quoting briefly with attribution. It also includes search-engine indexing, which is how most readers find us.

Use that is not reasonable, and which we may block, includes: automated harvesting at a rate that degrades the service for others; republishing pages or substantial extracts elsewhere; stripping bylines, disclosures or safety notices; presenting our material as your own or as another publisher's; and any attempt to probe, scan or interfere with the site's security.

Bulk or automated access for training, resale or redistribution is not permitted without written agreement.

Specific categories of advice we do not give

Because this site touches several regulated fields, it is worth being explicit rather than relying on a general disclaimer:

• Medical. No diagnosis, no treatment, no medication guidance, no assessment of your symptoms or conditions.
• Electrical and construction. No engineering judgement about your property, your wiring, your panel or your structure. Where a permit or a licensed professional is required, that requirement applies regardless of anything here.
• Insurance and financial. Nothing here is advice about coverage, claims or financial preparation.
• Legal. Nothing here is legal advice, including about evacuation orders, property obligations or liability.

Where a page describes what a code or an agency requires, that is a description of a requirement, not professional advice about how it applies to your situation.

Third-party content and trademarks

Government material reproduced or summarized here remains subject to the terms of the issuing agency. Product names, brand names and logos belong to their respective owners, and are used for identification only.

Mentioning a brand is not an endorsement by that brand of this site, and does not imply any relationship beyond what is disclosed on the page.

If something goes wrong

If you believe content here is inaccurate, unsafe or infringing, the fastest and most effective route is to tell us so we can fix it. Corrections are handled ahead of other editorial work, and a confirmed safety error ahead of everything.

To the extent permitted by law, correction of the content is the primary remedy available in respect of editorial material on this site.

9. Messages you send us

If you send a correction, question or other message, you allow us to use it to respond and to improve the site. Do not send confidential or sensitive personal information through a contact form.

10. Third-party links and services

We link to official agencies, manufacturers and retailers. We do not control those sites and are not responsible for their content, availability or practices. Map tiles are served by a third-party provider under its own terms.

11. Affiliate and advertising relationships

Commercial relationships are described in our Affiliate Disclosure and Advertising Disclosure.

12. Disclaimer of warranties

The site is provided as is and as available, without warranties of any kind, express or implied, including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, accuracy and non-infringement. We do not warrant that the site will be uninterrupted, error-free or that live data will be available or accurate.

13. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, State of Emergency is not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, or for loss arising from your use of, or reliance on, this site or its live data.

Some jurisdictions do not allow certain limitations, so parts of this section may not apply to you.

14. Indemnification

You agree to hold State of Emergency harmless from claims arising out of your misuse of the site or your violation of these terms.

15. Copyright complaints

If you believe material here infringes your copyright, contact us through the legal route on the contact page with enough detail to identify the work and the material in question.

16. Governing law

17. Changes to these terms

These terms may change. The last-updated date at the top reflects the current version, and continued use after a change means you accept it.

18. Severability

If any provision is held unenforceable, the rest remains in effect.

19. Contact

Questions about these terms go through the legal route on the contact page.

Who these terms are between

In these terms, we, us and State of Emergency mean the operator of state-of-emergency.com. You means any person accessing the site.

The operating entity, its jurisdiction and its registered contact details are being finalized. Until they are published here, treat these terms as the operator's stated position rather than as a completed legal instrument, and see the governing law section below.

No reliance for emergency decisions

This clause is the most important one on the page, so it is stated separately rather than buried in the liability section.

Do not use this site to decide whether an emergency is real, whether to evacuate, or whether a hazard has passed. Those decisions belong to emergency services, the National Weather Service and your local authorities, who have information this site does not and cannot have.

The Live Emergency Map may be delayed, incomplete or unavailable, and an absence of data on it never means an absence of danger.

Privacy

How this site handles data is described in the Privacy Policy and the Cookie Policy, which form part of these terms. In summary: no cookies, no analytics, no advertising technology, and standard server logging by our host.

Assignment

You may not transfer your rights under these terms. We may transfer ours in connection with a sale or reorganization of the publication, in which case the obligations described here transfer with it.

Provisions that survive

The sections covering intellectual property, disclaimers of warranty, limitation of liability, indemnification and governing law continue to apply after you stop using the site.

Circumstances beyond our control

We are not responsible for failures caused by events outside our reasonable control, including outages at our host or content delivery network, interruptions to third-party data feeds, network failures, or the very emergencies this site covers.