Currently, our Solar Emergency Response Team (SERT) is in California to provide support by deploying clean energy to communities in need. So far, we have focused our limited clean energy resources on multiple partnerships that focus on different aspects of the preparedness and recovery of disaster relief.
As citizens regained power in the following week, the Solar Energy Rapid Response team (SERRT) returned their solar trailer to Minneapolis and donated two electric chainsaws to assist NECHAMA Jewish Response to Disaster as they stayed in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
Electric chainsaws are proving to be essential for disaster recovery and volunteer training because they are quiet, light, and do not require gas.
These chainsaws were used for debris removal--the most powerful electric chainsaws can cut through diameters of two feet or more. According to city workers in Cedar Rapids, it will take at least a month to remove all the debris to open up essential streets.
On Monday afternoon, the National Weather Service declared a one out of five “marginal risk” warning. They did not predict that a 100 mile per hour wind derecho would leave over 200,000 citizens in Iowa bereft of power. A derecho is a spanish term meaning “straight ahead,” and is defined as a line of intense fast-moving, damaging windstorms occasionally accompanied by thunderstorms. This type of environmental disaster is notoriously rare and difficult to predict. Although the average wind speed in these straight line storms is 50 to 70 mph, this derecho was particularly fierce, with a record 110 mph, resulting in hurricane force winds in Iowa.
In April of this year, the Footprint Project partnered with Global Response Management (GRM) to power the COVID-19 Clinic for the Matamoros Refugee Camp. The Footprint Project provided a solar tent and trailer which became the first operational Solar Powered COVID-19 Clinic supporting doctors and medics.
Disasters exacerbate disparities. From Hurricane Katrina to the pandemic to Hurricane Ida, food insecurity is perpetuated by New Orleans’ high rates of poverty and vulnerability to extreme weather events.
We sat down with PV Magazine to discuss the Maui wildfires, decarbonizing disaster response, and duck curve financing.
When fires devastated communities on Maui in August, we watched in horror as the news traveled across the Pacific, reports growing deadlier and more devastating by the hour. Never having been to Hawai’i, we began to strategize about how we could help.
Early this spring, a series of tornadoes devastated several communities in rural Mississippi. We joined forces with local partners requesting emergency power: Delta Health Center in Rolling Fork, the Fannie Lou Hamer Center for Change in Eupora, and the Zion Baptist Association in Winona. These hubs would go on to serve as foundations of recovery and resilience in their communities.
Tucked away in the hills of the Russian River Valley near Cloverdale, CA, the Northern Sonoma County Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) is a shining example of effective use of cleaner energy in disaster response. The team of industrious firefighters stores, maintains, and frequently deploys one of Footprint Project’s solar trailers to emergency sites and shelters.
From FOX8 local news in New Orleans
A few months ago, long before a tropical depression that would become Hurricane Ian formed in the Caribbean, the United Methodist Committee on Relief decided to invest in resilient power solutions for their disaster response teams.
Three Sonoma County fire stations are now equipped with a new emergency response tool: mobile generators powered by the sun.
At Footprint Project, we focus on deploying solar generators to disasters in the domestic U.S. and Puerto Rico. Logistics, program sustainability, cultural competency, and overall need have always pointed us in the direction of our own backyard when it comes to building back greener - until Russia invaded Ukraine in February.
