Francine’s wind and rain lashed the dark neighborhoods, flooding them as Lee and Bailey almost decided to slog through hours of traffic to evacuate and stay with relatives in Texas.
After Hurricane Francine, 9 'Together Louisiana' Community Lighthouses Provide Vital Support
[Excerpt]
Then they remembered their neighborhood church still had its lights on. Inside First Grace United Methodist Church they found an air-conditioned refuge, a place to plug in their devices. They were able to charge the breathing machine and go back to sleep in their own home.
First Grace is part of the Community Lighthouse Project, an initiative born of hurricanes, to provide essentials like functioning electrical outlets and air conditioning to people facing blackouts, by building out solar panels on church roofs. The nonprofit Together New Orleans founded the project to turn the buildings into microgrids, meaning they generate and store their own electricity when the grid is down. There are now nine operating in New Orleans with a plan to expand to 86 across the city and 500 across the state....
Climate Solution: In the Swelter of Hurricane Blackouts, Some Churches Stay Cool on Clean Power, Washington Post [pdf]
Solar-Powered 'Lighthouses' Stayed Lit for Hurricane Francine. What Does It Mean for Bigger Storms?, Times-Picayune [pdf]
Solar 'Lighthouse' Project Underwent First Real Test in Hurricane Francine, Louisiana Illuminator [pdf]
Hurricane Francine: After-Action Report, Together New Orleans [pdf]
In Wake of Beryl Outage, TMO Demands Action for Most Vulnerable
TMO clergy and local leaders were joined by Patricia Darnauer, executive vice president and administrator of LBJ Hospital, at a press conference held at St. Francis de Assisi Catholic Church.
[Excerpts]
TMO seeks accountability, more aggressive outreach, and transparency so the general public knows what’s going on and collaboration so Harris County residents aren’t running around like chickens with their heads cut off” seeking much-needed resources like food, water, and medicine....
Community and faith leaders joined North Houston residents under the banner of The Metropolitan Organization (TMO) announcing they are in the process of scheduling a meeting with Houston’s Mayor John Whitmire “to discuss the [power] outage, the response to the outage and to look at future activities that need to happen to be proactive so that we can prevent this [in the future].”
“Because we know this is just the first hurricane, early in the season, and we’ve got a long way to go,” said Linda Hollins a TMO leader and member of Trinity United Methodist Church.
But TMO members didn’t wait for the yet solidified meeting date with Whitmire to voice their frustrations over the slow, and in many cases still non-existent, restoration of power to the 180,000 citizens across Houston and Harris County still in the dark, and more specifically residents of the Kashmere Gardens/Fifth Ward community where their press conference convened at St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church.
[Photo Credit: Aswad Walker, Houston Defender]
TMO Leaders Demand Action, Accountability on Slow Hurricane Beryl Response, Houston Defender [pdf]
Religious Leaders Demand Action for Remaining Powerless Homes, Houston Chronicle [pdf]
Survey Shows More Than Half of Families Still Struggling After Beryl, CW39 Houston [pdf]
6:31am Newscast, July 16th , Houston Public Media