This project focused on the ways storm and flooding data are collected and interpreted by MyCoast, a crowd-sourced, community science phone “app” for New York (in partnership with the Water Resources Institute) that depends on stakeholder participation and documentation of flooding and storm events. For this project we developed an assessment protocol to better understand the efficacy of MyCoast in documenting events. We also mined data from other sources (e.g., local and national news outlets, social media accounts, weather databases, river gauges, and conversations with National Weather Service meteorologists) to compare with MyCoast reports. Through our research and analysis, we developed a better understanding of how data is reported and utilized by communities. Additionally, we have been able to pinpoint some key strengths and weaknesses of the platform to improve usage.