Two years ago, Hurricane Helene cut Western North Carolina off from power, water, and one another. Fire stations we kept running on temporary solar now have permanent microgrids. Donated equipment has reached more than 120 individuals and families, and many of the people we met in those first days are now our partners. Here's a look back at two years of renewable response and recovery, from the first solar generators in shelters to the resilience hubs powering communities today.

Late summer is the start of our busiest season. By the last week of August 2026, we received disaster support requests from communities reeling from fires in Washington and Nevada, floods in West Virginia, storms in Tennessee, and Hurricane Lala in Hawai’i. Read more about our work in response and resilience with clean energy.

Footprint Project's Rae Goldman, Associate Director of Operations, and Gabriel Pacheco, Caribbean Program Manager, arrived in Venezuela in early July to lead the response on the ground, focused on getting reliable power to families and institutions — including the churches and community foundations described below — that the broader response hasn't yet reached. Since activating on June 25, our Footprint Project staff, and a growing group of local volunteers, have logged more than 919 combined hours assessing sites, delivering equipment, and building the community partnerships needed to get reliable power where it's needed most.

As multiple wildfires burned across Los Angeles County in early 2025, We partnered with the local film industry and the National Forest Service to replace 4 large diesel generators with solar and battery energy storage systems. 

A team led by Footprint Project and Overdrive Energy Solutions worked with the U.S. Forest Service to replace diesel generators with Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESSs) at the Eaton Fire Incident Command (IC) Post at the Rose Bowl Stadium. The Rose Bowl Stadium and surrounding parking lots had been turned into a massive incident command post. Agencies involved included LA Fire, LA County Fire, CAL Fire, LAPD, and the U.S. Forest Service. Because the Eaton Fire was burning on federal forest service land, the U.S. Forest Service was leading the operation. During this crisis, the stadium turned into a staging ground for over 4,000 firefighters, national guard troops, and first responders from city, state, county, and federal agencies. 

Hurricane Melissa closed out 2025 as a late-season hurricane -- the strongest storm to ever strike the island nation of Jamaica. This was our first in-person international response where we sent staff, volunteers, and renewable response technologies to respond to the devastating Category 5 storm. We worked with several local community partners and international humanitarian relief organizations to provide lifesaving communication hubs and mobile solar microgrid power for health clinics.

As the first major storm of 2026, Winter Storm Fern has kept us busy here at Footprint Project! We hope that everyone who has been impacted by the ice, snow and cold temperatures stays safe and has received help as soon as possible.