Once in a while we come across a story about batteries that makes our hearts feel good. The story begins with Hurricane Ida that blacked out parts of New Orleans for ten long days. Wheelchair and stair lift batteries ran down immobilizing vulnerable people. Then somebody had a flash of inspiration. Soon we’ll watch Community Lighthouses keep batteries alive during extreme weather events, they said.
Keeping Batteries Alive with Community Lighthouses
Sonia St. Cyr recalls how she lost her independence for a while. It was not fun, she remembers. She could only take wheelchair rides to the end of her block. Most times she sat on her porch. She was frustrated, because her volunteer church work was on hold.
A new project in southeast Louisiana aims to prevent that happening again. Associated Press says it plans to create ‘community lighthouses’ in New Orleans at 24 strategic points initially. Information is sketchy, but apparently they plan to install solar panels on community center roofs, and link these to storage batteries.
These will serve as electricity hubs where vulnerable people can charge their phones and other batteries. They will also be able to store their temperature-sensitive medication there. Using batteries that way is such a wonderful solution.
The Together New Orleans Non-Partisan Network
Together New Orleans is a non-partisan network of churches and groups that tries to fix community problems. The organizer Broderick Bagert recalls how they all felt impotent and helpless after the storm. They could only watch while their city struggled to deliver basics like collecting garbage in Ida’s aftermath.
New hope sprung afresh when he concluded local governments couldn’t handle everything alone. You can spend a lot of time saying… why don’t they, he remembers. But you start to realize the real question is why don’t we. And so Community Lighthouses was born.
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