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When Hurricane Ida knocked out the eight transmission lines carrying electricity into New Orleans in September, many people spent days in the dark.

Brenda Lomax-Brown, president of the city’s Hollygrove-Dixon Neighborhood Association, said median incomes of around $30,000 made it difficult for many in the area to evacuate or afford generators. Challenges included spoiled food, the inability to refrigerate medicine, and the difficulty for the elderly to find a place to stay cool. Cell phones died and cut off communications.

“People were desperate,” said Ms. Lomax-Brown. “Without your phone you can’t communicate with your loved ones who may be out of town, or with your neighbors to let them know how their house fared.”

New Orleans nonprofits are now stepping in to try to provide emergency power. Together New Orleans, a coalition of religious and civic groups, is raising money to add rooftop solar with batteries to 85 congregations and community centers. Their goal is for everyone in New Orleans to be a mile or less away from what they are calling “community lighthouses,” said Gregory Manning, pastor at Broadmoor Community Church.

“You get the ordinary benefits of solar, but if and when the grid goes out, you’ve got a real network that can respond,” said Together New Orleans organizer Broderick Bagert.

[Photo: Pastor Gregory Manning Broadmoor Community Church, New Orleans, LA. Credit Kathleen Flynn, Wall Street Journal]

Wary of Being Left in the Dark, Americans Produce Their Own Power, Wall Street Journal, Jennifer Hiller [pdf]

[Excerpt]

….[t]he Network of Texas IAF Organizations – a nonpartisan coalition of mostly faith-based organizations that represents more than one million people — and The Metropolitan Organization of Houston, held a virtual press conference April 12 to support approval of State Senate Bill 3, mandating weatherization under federal energy regulation guidelines.

They are calling for the costs to be covered by power producers and energy generators as well as through the state’s $10 billion “rainy day” fund. The bill passed in the Senate on March 29 and now moves to the House that heard testimony but has not taken a vote. It would also impose penalties for non-compliance, increase coordination among state energy regulating bodies and create an emergency alert system.

Faith organizations also called for establishing a $2 billion fund to help families pay for home and apartment repairs and for consumer advocates to be appointed to all state energy and utility boards.

Sister Maureen O’Connell, OP, Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston director of the Secretariat for Social Concerns, said, “Never again – the damage that this past storm inflicted on families should never happen again because of lack of preparation by the state.”

“People are still suffering and can’t make repairs on their own homes. It’s criminal not to help. The community, including the State Legislature, needs to support one another,” she said.

....Since many lost wages or jobs because of the pandemic, they remain living with mold in their homes from busted pipes and filling bathtubs with water, DeLeon described.  The ministry, with limited funds, can help each family only once every six months, she said. “This is only a temporary fix. The community’s problems are much bigger.”

With Hurricane Season Looming, Families Still Suffer from Winter Storm, The Arch-Diocese of Galveston [pdf]

When Austin Energy moved to more quickly cut off electricity from all families in arrears, including those who were not a part of the city's low-income Customer Assistance Program (CAP), Austin Interfaith stepped in to negotiate a better deal for those families making efforts to lower their debt.

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When Oklahoma Gas & Electric attempted to pass on the cost of updating a gas plant to consumers, rather than to the shareholders who benefited from a 50% increase in dividends while the utility delayed environmental compliance through lawsuits, leaders from VOICE-OKC urged the utility commission to reject the utility's plan. They additionally called on the Attorney General to get involved in the $1.1 Billion case to better protect residential consumers; this is the largest case ever presented to state regulators.

Rev. Jonalu Johnstone, a minister at the First Unitarian Church of OK City, argued, "It falls to you, the corporation commissioners, to stand for the consumers in this case, many of whom barely make it now from paycheck to paycheck."

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Valley Interfaith is drawing a connection between stories of cancer-related deaths, three gas stations and a benzene plume moving through a neighborhood blocks from St. Joseph the Worker Catholic Church in McAllen. Leaders are in the midst of a research campaign with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), Texas state legislators and County Commissioners to get to the bottom of the benzene plume. Discovery of the toxic gas plume emerged from a listening campaign about the concerns of Rio Grande Valley residents.

The OTOC Environmental Sustainability Team formed early this year upon learning that the Omaha Public Power District (OPPD) planned to continue burning coal in North Omaha and retreat from the use of renewable energy sources (including wind and solar). They presented 4 key demands to the OPPD Board leading them to revise their plans to end coal burning in North Omaha by 2016 and maintain a minimum use of 32% of renewable sources.

Pictured at right is the team of OTOC leaders that pushed the Board to revise its energy plan. Articles below quote OTOC leader Laurie Gift and OTOC ally Rev. Eric Elnes.

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