How alerts work
Lightning Ward watches a 10-mile radius around each of your registered site addresses, around the clock, using real-time strike data from Xweather's national lightning detection network — the same professional-grade data used across the weather industry.
When the first strike is detected inside that radius, every alert contact on the site gets a text message, and a 30-minute countdown starts. Any additional strike inside the radius silently resets the countdown to 30 minutes — you won't get a new text for every strike, because during a storm that would mean dozens of texts.
When a full 30 consecutive minutes pass with no strikes inside the radius, every contact gets an all-clear text. That's the whole cycle: one alert when the threat starts, one all-clear when it's safely over.
If a storm is already underway the moment you register a site, we check the last hour of strike history — if lightning has already hit inside your radius, the site goes straight into alert with the correct remaining countdown.
The texts you'll receive
There are only three kinds of messages, so anything from us is worth reading:
Reply STOP to any message to stop receiving texts, or HELP for assistance. Message frequency depends entirely on the weather. Message and data rates may apply.
Your live status page
Every site has its own status page — the link is in your texts, your welcome email, and on each site card in your dashboard.
It shows the current status (all clear or active alert), the live countdown during an alert, a map with your site, the 10-mile radius, recent strikes, and a live rain radar overlay, plus a list of recent strike activity with distances.
Managing your sites
Adding a site
- Open your dashboard and click + Add a job site.
- Enter the address (pick from the dropdown suggestions), an optional site name, and optionally a phone number for alerts.
- Click Start monitoring — coverage begins immediately, and if lightning is already nearby you'll know right away.
Renaming a site
Click the pencil (✎) next to the site's name on your dashboard. Names like "Fairmont Pkwy warehouse" make texts and reports easier to read than raw addresses.
When a job wraps up
Click Stop monitoring on the site's card. That ends alerts for that site and frees the slot, so you can add the next job site without changing your plan. Your plan's site limit counts only actively monitored sites.
Alert contacts
Every contact on a site receives the same alert and all-clear texts at the same time. Most customers add the superintendent, the foreman, and the safety manager.
To add one, click + Add contact on the site's card in your dashboard and enter their number and name. To remove one, click the ✕ next to their number. How many contacts each site can have depends on your plan — Starter allows 3, Pro allows 5 per site, Business allows 10 per site.
Compliance reports
Every detected strike, alert, and all-clear is logged with a timestamp. Click Compliance report on any site card to generate a report for any date range — it shows when each alert went out, how many people were notified, when operations were cleared to resume, and the detection methodology.
Use the Download PDF button to save or print it. It's built for handing to an OSHA inspector, an insurer, or a project owner asking how your lightning procedure is enforced and documented.
Billing & plans
Plans are priced per company, not per user or per text. All plans include the same monitoring, alerts, status pages, and compliance reports — they differ only in how many sites and contacts you can have.
Changing your plan
In your dashboard's Plan & billing section, click Change plan. You'll see your options with proration handled automatically — upgrades take effect immediately.
Payment details and invoices
Click Manage billing to update your card, view invoices, or cancel. Billing is handled by Stripe; we never see or store your card details.
Cancelling
Cancel anytime from Manage billing — no contracts, no cancellation fees. Monitoring continues through the end of your paid period.
Signing in
There are no passwords. Go to the sign-in page, enter your email, and we'll send you a sign-in link. The link works for 15 minutes and signs you in for 30 days on that device.
Use the same email you registered with. If the email doesn't arrive within a minute or two, check your spam folder, then use "Resend link."
Troubleshooting
I'm not receiving alert texts
There's a storm at my site but no alert fired
I got an alert but the sky looks clear
My sign-in email never arrives
The countdown reset — is that a glitch?
I can't add another site or contact
Contact support
Email [email protected] — a real person reads and answers every message. Include your account email and, if it's about a specific site, the site address, and we can usually resolve things in one reply.