When disasters strike, restoring access to critical infrastructure is among the first orders of business for emergency operations personnel. However, access to support services and resources for recovery is often scarcer in communities in need, further exacerbating the impact felt by residents.
Enter the Resilience, Education, and Advocacy Center for Hazard Preparedness (REACH) hub 鈥� the product of a partnership between researchers from 麻豆原创鈥檚 College of Community Innovation and Education, College of Engineering and Computer Science, and the City of Orlando. Officially unveiled Jan. 28 at the Orlando Emergency Operations Center, the hub is a self-sustaining mobile unit designed to be deployed to neighborhoods in need of critical services following emergencies. These include air-conditioning, mobile charging stations, broadband internet connection, and an onboard refrigerator and freezer that can assist with food storage and distribution.
鈥淭he program is focused on community-centered projects in close partnership with civic agencies, which was perfect for this idea.鈥� 鈥� Kelly Stevens, assistant professor
Kelly Stevens, principal investigator and assistant professor in the , says the city approached the team with an idea for a mobile resilience hub over five years ago. She found the U.S. National Science Foundation鈥檚 (NSF) Civic Innovation program shortly after.
鈥淭he program is focused on community-centered projects in close partnership with civic agencies, which was perfect for this idea,鈥� Stevens says.
Funded by a total of $1 million in grants from both the NSF and U.S. Department of Energy, the project kicked off in 2022 with a planning phase before receiving approval to begin the design and development phase in 2023. Stevens has led the REACH hub project alongside co-principal investigators Yue 鈥淕urt鈥� Ge, public administration associate professor; L. Trenton S. Marsh, urban education assistant professor; Liqiang Wang, computer science professor; and Zhihua Qu, electrical and computer engineering professor. Other faculty on the project include Maritza Concha, nonprofit management lecturer; Christopher Emrich, emergency management professor; and Kristopher Davis, associate professor of materials science and engineering.
The solar-powered REACH hub will be deployed to neighborhoods in need of critical services to improve disaster response and recovery efforts. Although designed primarily with 鈥済ray skies鈥� or emergency situations in mind, the pilot hub will not go unused during 鈥渂lue skies鈥� conditions. The REACH team has taken a collaborative approach that engages community partners in helping drive not only the hub鈥檚 design process but also ideas for its use outside of emergency deployment. That includes an educational component, which uses 360-degree video technology and virtual-reality headsets.
鈥淧artnerships have been the cornerstone of this project,鈥� Stevens says. 鈥淥ne of the strengths in our proposal was the demonstrated partnership 麻豆原创 has with the city of Orlando. Further, we have two core partners on this project 鈥攖he Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Florida鈥檚 Levy-Hughes Clubhouse and Hebni Nutrition, both located in Parramore 鈥� and they have provided feedback on how the hub could be useful to the work they do in the community with residents and Orlando youth.鈥�
Michael Hess, director of sustainability and resilience for the City of Orlando, also served as director of its Future Ready program, which focused on guiding the city toward a smarter and more sustainable future. It was during the plan鈥檚 development phase that he and his staff met Stevens and began collaborating on bringing the resilience hubs to life.
鈥淭he hub is the result of the city, 麻豆原创 and our other partners taking the concept of resilience and creating something with it,鈥� Hess says. 鈥淚t’s going to get used in 鈥榖lue skies鈥� 99% of the time 鈥� hopefully, we don鈥檛 have too many disasters 鈥� which means our sustainability and resilience team can use it for both education and fun. That could be anything from a movie night to teaching kids how to harvest from our community gardens. We鈥檙e looking at different types of educational content to help people be more sustainable and resilient.鈥�
The city will ultimately be responsible for deploying and maintaining the hub, but Stevens and her team will remain closely involved throughout the rest of the grant period, which runs through the end of September. Currently, they are continuing to collect insight from community members and partners that will further inform and hone the hub鈥檚 possible uses.
鈥淲e will be conducting demonstrations over the next few months where we will be collecting feedback from residents about the hub, evaluating the educational programs, and making adjustments to the resilience educational programming,鈥� Stevens says.
Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer says the hub is a welcome addition to the city鈥檚 six existing community centers 鈥� which double as resource distribution centers for residents following disasters 鈥� as it provides a means to bring resources straight to those who need them most.
鈥淲e’re always excited when we can provide additional support to our residents 鈥� especially after heat events, hurricanes or whatever other storms we may have,鈥� Dyer says. 鈥溌槎乖� has partnered with the city on so many different things, including designing and providing this deployable mobile hub, which I would say is pretty incredible. We are ecstatic to now have the ability to locate a resiliency hub anywhere in the city.鈥�
Researcher Credentials
Stevens joined 麻豆原创 in 2017 and holds a doctorate in public administration from Syracuse University. She is also a member of 麻豆原创鈥檚 Resilient, Intelligent, and Sustainable Energy Systems (RISES) Cluster and .
Ge joined the College of Community Innovation and Education in 2018 and serves as co-lead of the Urban Resilience Initiative. He is also part of the Center for Resilient, Intelligent and Sustainable Energy System (RISES) faculty research cluster. He holds a doctorate in urban and regional science from Texas A&M University.
Marsh earned his doctorate in teaching and learning with a concentration in urban education from New York University. He joined 麻豆原创鈥檚 College of Community Innovation and Education in 2019.
Qu arrived at 麻豆原创 in 1990 after earning a doctorate in electrical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He is both a Pegasus Professor and the Thomas J. Riordan and Herbert C. Towle Chair of 麻豆原创鈥檚 Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Additionally, Qu is the founding director of both RISES and the multi-institutional Foundations for Engineering Education for Distributed Energy Resources Center (FEEDER).
Wang earned his doctorate in computer science from Stony Brook University in 2006 and joined the 麻豆原创 Department of Computer Science in 2015.
