In 2022, a team of researchers from ΒιΆΉΣ³»΄«Γ½βs College of Community Innovation and Education and College of Engineering and Computer Science set out to solve an elusive question plaguing local officials: How do you provide critical services to residents where and when they need it after a disaster?
Neighborhoods throughout Orlando could easily find themselves without power, internet and mobility after significant weather events. Effective local response requires a mobile, self-sustaining solution to provide residents with services ranging from device charging and air-conditioned space to laundry to food distribution and even ice for food preservation. Even more, could such a solution also provide educational resources for residents to prepare for future emergencies more effectively?
Kelly Stevens, assistant professor of public administration and the projectβs principal investigator, has been working with fellow ΒιΆΉΣ³»΄«Γ½ researchers to bring this vision to life. Together with the City of Orlando and other community leaders, the team has spent the past year conceptualizing what an effective Resilience, Education, and Advocacy Center for Hazard Preparedness (REACH) hub would look like.
Now, theyβre ready to put their ideas into action.
The team recently received approval and funding for the projectβs second phase from the National Science Foundationβs CIVIC program, which involved presenting the findings from the projectβs first phase and successfully demonstrating its feasibility.
Stevens serves on the REACH project team with Yue βGurtβ 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, who serve as co-principal investigators. Senior personnel on the project include Maritza Concha, nonprofit management lecturer; Christopher Emrich, emergency management professor; and Kristopher Davis, associate professor of materials science and engineering.
βWe are extremely happy with the success of Phase I,β Stevens says. βWe had over 300 responses from residents to the community survey we built with our partners, which informed our design process in a way that allowed us to really co-design these hubs with and for the community.β
Stevens says feedback from the community was critical because residentsβ responses provided insight into potential resources and amenities for the hub beyond the original concept β from an onboard ice maker to finding a more efficient way to distribute water than simply having water bottles onboard.
The architectural design produced by the team is critical to Phase II of the project, the principal goal of which is to build and test a prototype REACH hub in the communities where it will ultimately be used.
The hub is designed as a trailer chassis-based mobile unit that can be easily deployed in neighborhoods without power or service access. The unit will contain a slew of appliances and usable services for residents to charge their devices, cool off, access the internet and more. The key to the hub is its self-sustaining power, principally supplied through solar panels and supplemented by a conventional generator when under heavy load.
βRight now, weβre working to select vendors that will construct the hub and everything on it,β Stevens says. βWeβre looking for someone who can build the hub itself, design the electrical and solar components, install the appliances, and ultimately provide us with a fully realized and working hub.β
Stevens also notes the hub itself is only half the battle. Critical to the projectβs value in the community is its educational component, designed to provide affected residents with necessary information about disaster preparedness and recovery before and after a disaster.
βOur βblue skiesβ curriculum will consist of community-driven, interactive and immersive STEM education learning stations,β says Marsh, who serves as the projectβs education lead. βWe want to build the programming around what residents recognize; the landmarks they view as signs of strength and resiliency, as well as areas they feel are more vulnerable or susceptible to inclement weather.β
The hubs will also host just-in-time preparedness content for residents to assist with preparation and decision-making ahead of a potential emergency. Evacuation plans and food preparation, Marsh says, are plans the team hopes to focus content on.
Ideally, the team hopes to leverage emerging augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) technologies in developing educational programming to provide residents with in-depth, immersive experiences. The ΒιΆΉΣ³»΄«Γ½-led HazardAware project also collects data that can provide individual address-based natural hazard and home resilience information tailored to residentsβ specific homes.
βWe hope that weβll be able to further leverage our resources at ΒιΆΉΣ³»΄«Γ½ to accomplish these goals with virtual and augmented reality programming, specifically through a potential partnership with the universityβs ,β Marsh says.
Once the prototype hub has been built and the educational programming completed, the team will run extensive tests and experiments on the hubβs appliances and power systems to ensure its viability in real-world scenarios. After that, testing will move into the community β where Stevens says the team will really get a sense of how the hub will work.
βWeβre going to implement four test deployments in local neighborhoods β three during βblue skiesβ and one after an actual emergency,β Stevens says. βWe want to see how people actually interact with the hub β what theyβre interested in, what parts are functional and even what parts arenβt super functional.β
The final step, once testing is completed, is to hand off ownership of the hub to the city of Orlando. The city will be responsible for the deployment, maintenance and future development of the project. Michael Hess, director of the City of Orlandoβs Future Ready program, and Ian Lahiff, an energy project manager with the city, serve as senior personnel on the project.
βThe city has been our core partner from Day One, so we know theyβre in this for the long haul,β Stevens says. βOur team is confident they will be good stewards of the project and its impact on the community.β
The ultimate goal, Stevens says, is to produce an effective and efficient means of increasing resilience in the community.
βWhen we can show our community that ΒιΆΉΣ³»΄«Γ½ is leveraging its expertise and resources to produce technology β in a quick timeframe and at a very local scale β that can actually be used in the community, thatβs the real impact,β she says.
Researcher Credentials
Stevens received her doctorate in public administration from Syracuse University and joined ΒιΆΉΣ³»΄«Γ½βs School of Public Administration, part of ΒιΆΉΣ³»΄«Γ½βs College of Community Innovation and Education, in 2017. She is a member of ΒιΆΉΣ³»΄«Γ½βs Resilient, Intelligent, and Sustainable Energy Systems (RISES) Cluster and
Ge joined ΒιΆΉΣ³»΄«Γ½ in 2018 and serves as co-lead of the Urban Resilience Initiative based at ΒιΆΉΣ³»΄«Γ½ Downtown. He has also served on the RISES faculty research cluster since 2021. 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 and joined ΒιΆΉΣ³»΄«Γ½βs College of Community Innovation and Education in 2019 after a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Michigan β Ann Arbor.
Qu arrived at ΒιΆΉΣ³»΄«Γ½ in 1990 after earning a doctorate in electrical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Currently the Thomas J. Riordan and Herbert C. Towle Chair of ΒιΆΉΣ³»΄«Γ½βs Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, he is also the founding director of both RISES β a university research center on energy systems β and the multi-institutional (FEEDER).
Wang earned his doctorate in computer science from Stony Brook University in 2006 and joined the ΒιΆΉΣ³»΄«Γ½ Department of Computer Science in 2015.
