Central Florida Public Media: New mobile resilience hub to deliver internet access, fresh water and more

Molly Duerig, Central Florida Public Media

A pilot project unveiled Tuesday at the City of Orlando’s Emergency Operations Center aims to help residents bounce back more quickly — and equitably — from disaster, like a hurricane or extreme heat event. The new mobile resilience hub will also help people prepare for emergencies, according to project leaders at the city and with the University of Central Florida.

In emergency times, the new, solar-powered mobile resilience hub will allow impacted residents to access the internet and charge cell phones, as well as an accompanying air-conditioned tent. The hub’s on-board refrigerator and freezer can also store ice, cold water and fresh produce for distribution.

But even in non-emergency times, the hub will still be put to good use, project partners say: as a mobile educational center, delivering curriculum built on STEM concepts (science, technology, engineering and mathematics).

The goal is to help city residents prepare for disasters ahead of time, including residents in underserved neighborhoods and people who may not be aware of the city’s EOC and related resources, said L. Trenton Marsh, an assistant professor of urban education at UCF.

“We're giving, essentially, citizens tools that they can tap into from the EOC, from their own homes,” Marsh said.

For example, some of the material focuses on how residents can grow their own vegetables, including through the city’s community gardens program. “There's curriculum to walk folks through buying groceries; buying and preparing food, in the middle and actually before a storm,” Marsh said.

Immersive, 360-degree video technology will also complement the mobile hub’s educational component, allowing residents to “travel” to different parts of the city simply by donning a headset, Marsh said. Youth engagement was key in the development of that 360-video piece: last summer, young focus group members helped select ten city landmarks, each representing either collective vulnerability or resilience.

“We took 360-degree photos of these locations, we stitched them together.” Marsh said. “And when anybody engages in our hub, whether it's here, in person or online, they can engage in some of the content that young people put together.”

The new mobile resilience hub builds on the city’s existing framework for “resilience hubs”: six community centers which can also serve as resource distribution centers and charging stations for residents, following a disaster. Federal grants previously funded the electrical upgrades and other improvements needed to transform those six community centers into resilience hubs, per the city.

“People can come to the community centers, but oftentimes you need to bring something to the people,” Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer said Tuesday.

“What's great about having a mobile solution is, obviously, you can take this anywhere in the city,” Dyer said. “With the creation of this mobile resilience hub, we're expanding our efforts and making our work even more inclusive.”

This first mobile resilience hub is a pilot project, but assuming all goes well, partners at UCF and the city hope to launch more in the future. Kelly Stevens, an assistant professor in UCF’s School of Public Administration, says the hub was made possible by about $1 million in federal funding.

“It's what made it happen,” Stevens said. “CIVIC is what really made this possible.”

The National Science Foundation’s Civic Innovation Challenge (CIVIC) funds “innovative, research-based solutions that address climate resilience and equitable access to essential resources,” according to a government webpage.

Read the original article here.