When Christina Chu arrived the third week in January at the Rose Bowl emergency operations center in Los Angeles to provide mobile microgrids and batteries to power firefighters’ efforts, the atmosphere was tense and the physical environment was harsh.
On the hard concrete floor were tents for firefighters–who had been camping at the Rose Bowl– mobile communications equipment and trailers housing showers, said Chu, the executive director of Solarpunks, which aims to eliminate fossil fuel use in the creative communities, including film, music and art.
The “gnarly” Rose Bowl emergency operations center
The firefighters were doing shifts heading into the wilderness to douse fires, then returning to the Rose Bowl, which was filled with the loud sounds and stink of diesel generators.
“It was really gnarly,” Chu said.
Her team’s goal: to replace diesel generators with quiet, emission-free solar-filled batteries and mobile microgrids at the Rose Bowl and in other areas that lacked power as a result of the fires.
It was a new type of recovery effort for Footprint Project, said Jamie Swezey, program director, Footprint Project, which is lending batteries and solar generators to people and organizations in the impacted area. Generally, the nonprofit works in small, rural areas that are heavily impacted by fires or storms–not a sprawling city.
“Some places were disaster zones, and everyone was moving toward recovery. Two miles away, life was moving on as usual,” Swezey said.