Hurricane Sandy – TED Blog

A possible answer for preventing sewage from flowing into waterways in extreme weather

Kate Torgovnick May — Thu, 02 May 2013 23:44:16 +0000

During Hurricane Sandy, 10 billion gallons of raw sewage were released into the rivers, canals and bays of New York and New Jersey — and into homes and buildings that were flooded in the storm. This shocking number comes from a report by Climate Central. As reported in The New York Times earlier this week, the sludge would have been enough to cover Central Park in a 41-foot tall blanket of muck.

“Our sewage infrastructure isn’t designed to handle this type of storm surge,” explained Dr. Alyson Kenward, the principal author of the report.

Right before Hurricane Sandy, architect Ate Atema gave a talk in the TED office (part of our then-new TED@250 series) with an idea for something that might alleviate this very problem in cities like New York: street creeks.

In this talk, Atema explained that “CSO” does not stand for Chicago Symphony Orchestra — it stands for Combined Sewage Overflow, which happens when storm surge overwhelms sewage pipes and causes them to overflow into waterways. Surprisingly, CSOs happen by design. In the 1900s, underground sewer systems were built on a one-pipe model that flows storm runoff and sewage through the same pipes. The pipes were angled so that, when overwhelmed, sewage-tainted water would flow into local waterways, rather than back into homes. Many cities like New York have simply not been able to upgrade these systems.

Atema’s idea is to create separate channels for storm runoff, keeping it separate from sewage by building creeks alongside streets that capture rainwater and flow it into waterways. The creeks are designed with catch basins that weed out street trash and cisterns able to catch the “first flush” of rainwater — which picks up 80% of street pollution contamination. The creeks can be planted with trees and grass, making them into a amenity for a block while treating contamination.

To hear more about how street creeks would work, watch this talk. Want to hear more about New York’s Gowanus Canal? Watch the talk “Reviving New York’s rivers – with oysters.”

In Short: A cookbook to benefit Hurricane Sandy victims, the BBC covers TEDxSanaa

Kate Torgovnick May — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 23:30:23 +0000

Enjoy a sampling of the stories from around the internet that captured our interest this week:

The gorgeous digital cookbook above, All Hands on Deck, contains innovative recipes from restaurants in Red Hook, a neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York, that was flooded during Hurricane Sandy. Proceeds will go to the recovery effort. [AllHandsOnDeckRedHook.com]
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Check out this incredible piece on TEDxSanaa, the first TED event in Yemen’s capital, which included talks from a futurist as well as from a champion camel jumper. The article reads, “The country has become known for drone strikes against Al Qaeda suspects and for the 2011 protests — inspired by the Arab Spring uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt — that led to the overthrow of its leader … It was against this backdrop that the TEDxSanaa team opened its all day event on the last day of 2012, with the theme of ‘inspiring hope.’” [BBC.com]
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A fascinating, and disturbing thought—is post-traumatic stress disorder contagious? [Mother Jones]
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TED2013 speaker Amanda Palmer wrote a blog piece titled, “How the Hell am I Going to Deliver this TED Talk? Help.” [AmandaPalmer.net]
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Lesley Perkes, also speaking at TED2013, took to her blog to post “TED was in my Dream,” complete with hilarious photos. [LesFolies.posterous.com]
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Question: Can you describe a highly complicated topic using just the thousand words used most frequently in English? Try it. [The Up-Goer Five Text Editor]
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San Jose State University announced a deal this week with the online college course service, Udacity, to offer for-credit classes. It’s a big step for MOOCs. [NY Times] Several TED speakers have given talks about online education this year: Peter Norvig described his 100,000 student classroom, Daphne Koller showed how Coursera is collecting data, and Shimon Schocken explained his self-organizing computer course.
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The magazine Maui Time featured TEDx on its cover. [MauiTime.com]
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Read up on monkeys who used trees as a catapult to escape a primate research center in Japan. [The Courier Mail]
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A fascinating proposal for a new kind of academic journal. [Gowers]
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Jay Silver, a three time TEDx speaker, had his project included in Kickstarter’s fascinating Best of 2012 collection. Called the MaKey MaKey, it’s a device that allows you to make a banana piano or a play-doh video game controller, or a paper keyboard. The project raised $568,106 — $543,106 over its $25,000 goal. [Kickstarer.com]
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Speaking of Star Wars, over the past two months, nearly 35,000 people signed a petition for the United States government to “Begin construction of a Death Star by 2016” under the guise that it would create jobs. The White House responded, showing an incredible sense of humor. [White House.gov]
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TED’s own Ben Lillie has launched a Kickstarter project. Called Science Studio, it’ll bring you the best science reporting out there in a myriad of forms. [Kickstarter.com]
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Here, a look at 10 conversations that led to collaborative innovations that changed our world. [Fast Company]

Deploying veterans for disaster relief: A Q&A with Jake Wood of Team Rubicon

Kate Torgovnick May — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 16:20:51 +0000

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Team Rubicon’s latest mission is called Operation: Greased Lightning. What does that mean, you ask?

In this powerful talk, given at TEDxSanDiego in 2011, Jake Wood shares his experience co-founding Team Rubicon, a disaster relief organization that uses veterans to do the difficult work of search and rescue, supply disbursement and debris cleanup, helping those in devastated areas while simultaneously giving veterans a renewed sense of purpose. It’s a powerful solution to two problems.

“The first is that there’s inadequate disaster relief. It’s slow, it’s antiquated, it’s not using the best technology and it’s not using the best people,” says Wood in his talk. “The second problem … is very inadequate veteran reintegration. It’s a topic that’s front-page news right now. As veterans are coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan, they are struggling to reintegrate back into civilian life … We can use disaster response as an opportunity for service for veterans coming home. And we can use veterans to improve disaster response.”

Wood served for four years in the Marine Corps, doing tours of duty in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Upon returning, he and several friends founded Team Rubicon. Their first initiative sent them to Port-au-Prince, Haiti, where an earthquake had ripped the country apart and relief supplies were moving far too slowly. (Watch Jake’s 2010 TEDxSanDiego talk about Team Rubicon in Haiti.) From there, Team Rubicon sent volunteers to help after the tsunami in Chile and floods in Pakistan. In 2011, the organization set its sights on domestic disaster relief as well, sending volunteers to help after the tornados in Joplin, Missouri.

Which brings us back to Operation: Greased Lightning. Last year, Team Rubicon mobilized to provide disaster relief in areas affected by Hurricane Sandy. Wood tells the TED Blog that the operation name was given because Sandy is the main character in the movie Grease.

The TED Blog caught up with Wood while he was organizing Team Rubicon’s Hurricane Sandy response. After watching his moving talk, read the short Q&A with him below.

What were your first thoughts hearing about Hurricane Sandy approaching?

What can we do — and how quickly can we do it.

What are some of the things Team Rubicon is doing to pitch in for Hurricane Sandy relief?

We have been working around the clock since the Saturday before the storm. In the first week, we ran search-and-rescue operations, shelter management and debris clearing. As the efforts are transitioning to the recovery phase, we are mobilizing and deploying over 1,000 military veterans to move into a single community to lead recovery efforts and establish a battle plan to return to normalcy. Street by street, home by home. It will be Fallujah, but with chainsaws and shovels instead of tanks and rifles.

You gave talks about Team Rubicon at TEDxSanDiego in 2010 and 2011. How has Team Rubicon evolved since then?

Since then, we’ve expanded exponentially. In 2010 we saw ourselves primarily as an international disaster relief organization that used military veterans and focused on medical triage and training. However, in that first year we began to realize just how powerful the continued service was to the veterans who were involved, and we began to think about ways to expand programs to include more vets. The natural avenue was to drop the medical emphasis and expand into domestic disaster response. Since doing that, we’ve grown from 300 volunteers to 5,000 and our mission tempo has picked up dramatically.

In the past two years, what have been some of the Team Rubicon efforts have you been most proud of?

We’re most proud of recognizing and capturing the spirit of service that was inherent in the military veterans who were involved. Our nation’s veterans are such an incredible resource, and I think we have a unique opportunity to prove it to our country.

What was your experience returning to everyday life after military service? Do you think the general public has a good understanding of what it’s like to return, or is there something it’s hard for us to get?

The general public will never understand what it’s like — it’s just not possible. It is very difficult, but fortunately for me, I founded Team Rubicon with William McNulty only a few months after I left the service, so there wasn’t a lot of time for me to get lost.

What skills do veterans have that make them a good fit for disaster relief?

First and foremost, it’s their ability to stay calm in incredibly stressful situations. I think this too often gets brushed aside. Disasters are incredibly fluid situations, and many people often go crazy with the uncertainty; however, this is exactly the situation that veterans have found themselves in for the last ten years in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In addition to that, veterans have great leadership skills, the ability to work in teams, and a unique knack for living in austere conditions. Finally, they have a lot of the hard skills needed: emergency medicine, heavy equipment operation, and high-speed communications knowledge.

You say in your talk that the experience of volunteering for Team Rubicon has for some been as good, if not better, than therapy. Why do you think that is?

Veterans lose three things when they get out of the military: mission, community and a sense of self. Team Rubicon is able to provide these things to veterans in spades. We have a clearly defined mission that our veterans buy into; they once again find themselves on the front lines, only this time in their communities after disasters rather than in the Middle East.

For more on Team Rubicon, head to their website or follow them on Twitter.

Note: This post originally ran on November 6, 2012. It was surfaced again on Veteran’s Day 2013.

How you can help Hurricane Sandy relief in and around NY

TED Staff — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 22:02:23 +0000

The TED staff has returned to our downtown New York office in the wake of the chaos churned by Hurricane Sandy. All day, there has been just one question on our minds: How can we help? The temperature will be creeping below freezing tonight, while many pockets of the East Coast remain without power and running water; meanwhile, many people have been rendered homeless by the storm.

Hurricane Sandy reminded us of a lot: the need to prepare for disasters, the importance of having gratitude for simple things like a hot shower, and the amazing power of people to step in and help those in need. Many TED staff members joined the patchwork quilt of recovery efforts being initiated all over the city. TED’s own Thaniya Keereepart shared her experience organizing in Red Hook yesterday, while UX Lead Aaron Weyenberg headed to the Park Slope Armory in Brooklyn, where residents of several evacuated homes for the elderly have been living for days. Alanna Beckman of our Partnerships team helped set up the website Race2Recover.com, which allowed those who had booked hotels for the cancelled New York City Marathon to donate their rooms to those in need. Media production coordinator Gwen Schroeder compiled and shared a list of trusted sources for friends outside NYC who can’t just jump in a car and help but want to.

Yet still, we’re left asking: What are the needs our community right now? Where are volunteers needed? Where should we give donations? Below, some links that may prove helpful in this ever-changing ecosystem.

If you’re looking for more information…

Websites that are constantly updating relief information:

Some Twitter handles giving updates:

And some hashtags to read up on:

If you’re looking for how to help, either by volunteering or giving donations:

Local organizations collecting donations:

Organizations you can donate to by text:

Salvation Army: Text the word STORM to 80888 to make a $10 donation. To confirm the donation, respond with the word “Yes.”
Red Cross: Text the word REDCROSS to 90999 to donate $10 to American Red Cross Disaster Relief. (If you change your mind, text the word STOP to 90999.)
Tunnel2Towers: Text the word RESTORE to 80888 to make a $10 donation. To confirm the donation, respond with the word “Yes.”

Places to donate supplies:

Please be aware that most locations are no longer accepting clothing donations. There is still, however, need for winter clothes (coats, hats, scarves, gloves, and socks), blankets, water, batteries (C, D, AA, AAA, 9 volt), flashlights, generators, candles, food (mostly prepared, though also non-perishable), vitamins for the elderly, insulin, baby items, pet food, toiletries, cleaning supplies (gloves, brooms, mops, bleach and paper towels). To find specific needs at specific donation centers, head to InterOccupy.net.
Use Amazon’s Occupy Sandy registry to order specific supplies to be sent directly to Occupy Sandy at the Church of St. Luke and St. Matthew volunteer center in Clinton Hill. Supplies will be distributed from there.

Ways to donate your time:

Here, an annotated Google map of locations in need of volunteers. The ones with green pins are accepting volunteers.
To volunteer through Occupy Sandy, head to the St. Jacobi Church in Sunset Park. They will be dispersing volunteer groups to the areas in the biggest need. Find out more information at InterOccupy.net.
On Tuesday, Nov. 6th from 10am to 4pm, donate blood at Duane Reade and Walgreens in Times Square at 1471 Broadway.
Hurricane disruptions have also caused a shortage of platelets. Find information on platelet donation at NYBloodCenter.org.

Do you have information to share? Hit the comments below.

Red Hook still hurting after Hurricane Sandy: A diary

Thaniya Keereepart — Sat, 03 Nov 2012 16:37:16 +0000

New York is slowly but surely coming back to life after being battered by Hurricane Sandy. Nearly all of Manhattan has electricity, and subway lines are being restored. But not every area of the city is faring so well. As The New York Times noted on Saturday, many of the city’s public housing facilities — often located in low-lying neighborhoods that were hit worst by the storm — remain without power and may be without it for some time. The paper reports today that as many as 40,000 people from New York public housing complexes may be homeless, with their buildings in serious disrepair. TED’s Product Development Director, Thaniya Keereepart, shares what she saw:

On Thursday night, I went with some friends to the heart of the Red Hook Houses to volunteer for disaster recovery. Red Hook took a big blow of the flood from Hurricane Sandy. The water rose well above seven feet on the streets there and, compared to other neighborhoods, cleanup has been slow. I was expecting that I would just drop off food, clothing and supplies and help out at the center where I could. But I found something different there that compelled me to share with you. Below, the diary of my last few days.

Thursday

While a few of the buildings in Red Hook have power back on, overall, the neighborhood remains pitch dark. Because it is somewhat of a forgotten — or rather “de-prioritized” — neighborhood due to poverty level, the volunteer coordinator I spoke to expected that they will remain in darkness for the next 10 to 14 days to come. That is a long time to not have heat, water, working sanitation or light.

Upon entering the main office area of the volunteer center, a little girl rushed up to whoever she thought knew anything about anything. (Most people don’t. To my surprise, it was pure chaos.) She wanted insulin for her mother, who wasn’t able to come down 14 flights of stairs in darkness. There was none to give out. She took the last of the ice packs and was told that it will help keep whatever insulin left in the house cold (and I suppose longer lasting).

Rodents were also a big problem. The water had pushed critters up the building. Without light or power, raccoons, rats, the works would crawl everywhere. War broke out at the sight of a flashlight or batteries or blankets.

We were asked to go get water from Coffey Park by one of the coordinators. The National Guard had come by earlier and dumped a bunch there as a part of their “rescue effort,” so to speak, but why was the water left at the park? Five of us set foot into the night. The streets were dangerous. Teen boys howled at the sight of us. Crime is high here. The only light source around at this point was one mobile floodlight that shone on three cops who we spoke to briefly. Not a sign of care in the world as to what was going on around them. Their job was simply to stand in the light to emit presence.

We quickly realized that this volunteer center was not only immensely inefficient, but will likely not be able to continue to provide support to the community if the power stays out for two weeks without more help.

My friend JuAnne, a project manager at Google, and myself took it upon ourselves to analyze the workflow of the volunteer resources with the current heroic coordinator Kirby. Our hope is to build a lightweight system that helps improve volunteer process efficiency … in 36 hours. Turns out, the tool that the Red Hook team currently uses, and the one that I found them on, is from Recovers.org — and there’s a TEDTalk on it! This same platform is being deployed for the Lower East Side, Staten Island, and Astoria as well … all for Sandy.

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Luckily, others are stepping in to help at the Red Hook Houses, and New York’s other out-of-power public housing facilities too. The folks from Occupy Wall Street — under the name to Occupy Sandy — are coordinating volunteers and resource distribution to areas still hurting from the storm. Through their website, you can volunteer to help in person and find out how to donate money as well as supplies like blankets, candles, flashlights, batteries, diapers, gloves, masks, rubber boots and, of course, nonperishable food.

Here’s hoping the power comes on far sooner than expected, and that cleanup efforts in this area are speedier than we fear.

Friday

It’s a weird feeling to hop back and forth between the warm and inviting Park Slope and the drastically not warm and inviting Red Hook.

Today was a shorter day at the volunteer center, but one of good progress. I am now able to access the admin panels of Occupy Sandy. Other areas seem to be utilizing the tool quite well, updating news to the general mass every few hours. Red Hook sort of goes with the minimalist approach of once every rarely. At the center, I was able to assess network needs. We’ll be placing WiFi repeaters on location once the shipment arrives (hopefully Monday) so people can share data entry responsibilities using a Google Doc. Logistics also improved tremendously with a few key coordinators in place and simple changes (like name tags!) were implemented. We also got one nurse. Yay. Most of the medical asks have been related to diabetes (no insulin, no fridge) and asthma.

We’re working towards placing orders for battery- and solar-powered lights to all of the Red Hook House buildings that are still in the dark. That’s about 63 building entrances, about 354 hallways, covering a few city blocks. More friends joined in, pledging batteries and blankets.

Back towards the edge of Park Slope, lines around the one and only gas station formed about five blocks long on all sides. One lady I talked to had been waiting more than four hours and, as rumor had it, the next gas drop wouldn’t be for an hour and a half. Yet no one budged. Every now and then, someone would scalp gas. Eight cop cars were lined up every side to break up the occasional fights from line cutters. There is a $50 per person spending limit at this station, so many people would bring the entire family over to wait. The price one pays for liquid gold. Of course 20 minutes later, a huge “rogue truck” swung into the parking lot of a hotel and started pumping gas straight from the truck for a “nonregulated sum.” I didn’t see this with my own eyes, but the chaos that ensued was probably as maddening as you can imagine.

Saturday

After much discussion on how to best improve logistic operation, we decided to abandon the custom-built software route. Trained volunteers worked in shifts digitizing requests and response (“canvasing”) over numerous Google Doc spreadsheets. That was enough to streamline the core necessities — search, sort, logging, etc. The team became so efficient that word got on the street that the Red Hook operation has a great working model. Teams from nearby operations came to get training in the afternoon.

My job for the day was to shuffle materials into the center and coordinate needs. Volunteer medical personnel arrived. That was a huge relief. Our friend Todd came through with 200 units of LED lights. We formed “project light path” at the center where teams of 3-4 volunteers visit the homes of known cases with medical, elderly, family to deliver light. I joined the last team out. Four of us — Vanessa, who biked from Bushwick, my friend Lander who coordinated all the need surveys across the entire project, and Andrew, a 16-year-old who lives in the neighborhood and had been helping out for many days.

Many grateful faces greeted us. Stories were shared. Neighbors helped each other. Andrew, more than anyone, gave me hope. We walked past one bus garage hiring drivers and he asked if we could write down the contact number for his brother. He goes to a magnet high school for environmental studies by Columbus Circle. He brought up the case of Nikola Tesla and asked if we knew it was a political assassination. Having him on the team to guide us through the labyrinth of dark streets with seemingly identical buildings made me feel safer. When we conversed with the elders visited, I could tell the kid has a great heart. I think he might find TEDYouth an engaging event. If I find him again I’ll ask.

The night ended late. I was exhausted. A long and thorough shower was in order. Overall I think the neighborhood is becoming more stable. With heat-pack delivery on Monday and continued food and medical units on the ground, these guys are on their way to better recovery.

Thinking about extreme weather: 7 talks for the storm

Kate Torgovnick May — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 19:56:09 +0000

Hurricane Sandy is currently hovering over the Atlantic Ocean, threatening a large swath of the United States’ East Coast, from North Carolina to Maine. With coastal areas evacuated, wind and rainfall picking up quickly and many transportation systems shut down in anticipation of flooding, millions of people are currently at home, just waiting for roughest part of the storm to pass.

(The TED staff is included in this group, as our New York City office is located on the border of a flood zone. We will, however, be working from our apartments as long as the power permits.)

While you’re stuck at home, here are seven talks that seem especially fitting for today. And here’s hoping that this storm’s impact is far less severe than expected — though judging from the latest images, it doesn’t appear that will be the case.

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Nathalie Miebach: Art made of storms
As anyone watching The Weather Channel for the past few days knows, weather data is complex. Artist Nathalie Miebach aims to make weather data understandable by turning it into sculptures and musical scores, to beautiful end.

Robert Krulwich: How much does a hurricane weigh?
Clouds are much heavier than one would think, explains Radiolab host Robert Krulwich in this NPR lesson. But hurricanes are unthinkably heavy, holding about 108 billion pounds of water. That’s the weight of 360,000 blue whales – more than there are on planet Earth.

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Caitria and Morgan O’Neill: How to step up in the face of disaster
The O’Neill sisters were shocked when a tornado ripped through their hometown of Monson, Massachusetts, in 2011. In the days after the disaster, they realized just how unprepared their city was for a recovery effort. In this talk from TEDxBoston, the pair describe how they took action, building systems to organize volunteers and donations, and how they’ve codified their learnings at Recovers.org. (Read Caitria and Morgan’s “Hit by a natural disaster? The first 6 things to do for your community’s relief effort” on the TED Blog.)

George Kourounis: Our angry planet
George Kourounis has made it his mission to see the most dangerous places on earth for his television series Angry Planet. As Kourounis explains, “I try to find the art in the most destructive events on the planet.” At TEDxAthens, he explains how he photographs natural disasters, as well as why.

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Vicki Arroyo: Let’s prepare for our new climate
New Orleans resident Vicki Arroyo, of the Georgetown Climate Center, says that it is time for us to get real about climate change — and to actively prepare our homes and cities for flooding, droughts and the increasing uncertainty of weather. In this talk from TEDGlobal 2012, she gives examples of communities that are effectively thinking ahead.

Jeremiah Warren: How are hurricanes named?
Hurricane Sandy, Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Andrew. How do these storms get their names? In this short video, Jeremiah Warren explains the order behind hurricane naming — that the first storm of the year gets a name that starts with the letter ‘A,’ the second gets one that starts with the letter ‘B’ and so on, with the most devastating storms having their names retired.

Rachel Kyte: Resilience in the face of natural disasters
Our world is experiencing twice as many natural disasters as in the past, says Rachel Kyte, the Vice President of Sustainable Development for the World Bank. And it’s overwhelming poor communities that bear the brunt of natural disaster deaths and damages. At TEDxSendai, Kyte stresses the importance of making disaster risk management part of building codes, and also forcing it to be a part of public discourse.