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Robert:We are invited into a round table discussion
with FEMAs field innovation team.
To discuss the events of Sandy
which had happened 2 weeks prior.
The core of this entire initiative
was flipping the way that we look at disaster relief.
When a disaster strikes,
communities are the first people
to start addressing their needs by themselves.
We looked at that and we said,
these people are doing everything and anything
that they can to get back up and running.
How can we give them the tools needed
and empower them with something more formal.
Prior to this program officially starting
there are a lot of [frogs] essentially
trying to get our communities back up and running
from a volunteering standpoint.
In a lot of ways Sandy affected our neighborhoods
so we were all really just jumping
at the opportunity to address this,
and really make a difference.
Liesje:2 days after the storm
I went to Belle Harbor to St. Francis de Sales Parish
where there was an informal recovery effort underway.
It was this kind of messy hub
where people just knew to go.
There were people who were volunteering
from outside the community,
people inside would just show up
and kind of knew that there would be food there,
clothes there, donations there,
or it was just a place to warm up.
The realization that that activity would go on
before any kind of formal aid came in
was really important.
We're designing something,
a concept right for a disaster recovery center
experience for FEMA,
but there's so much that they're not in control of
and so much that happens
before they even can touch the ground.
Knowing that there's this kind of dissonance,
there these community recovery centers
and then there this more FEMA [formal] centers
and that they weren't the same
and that it wasn't clearly being communicated
and formed a number of ideas.
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