Designing a Resilience Hub for Vulnerable Populations in Las Carolinas
Project Sponsor: Maria Arroyo & Dimarie Fontanez
Team Members: Tara Checko, Aashi Goel, Abigail Sumner, and Nathaniel Wood
Project Advisors: Prof. John-Michael Davis & Sarah Molinari
Project Files:
Abstract
Government agencies have been slow to respond and support Puerto Rican communities’ post-disaster. The Centro de Apoyo Mutuo (CAM) in rural Las Carolinas is a mutual aid center based in a repurposed school that aims to increase community resilience and disaster preparedness for their community. Our project supported CAM Las Carolinas’ resilience efforts by developing a disaster preparedness mobilization system that documented household-level assets and risks to improve post-disaster response effectiveness. The system was informed by interviews with 42 las Carolinas residents, 4 community leaders, and 6 other mutual aid centers. We created a database and mapping system to locate at-risk community members and provided the CAM with recommendations to build long-term resilience.
Executive Summary
Figure A: Damages to a road in Las Carolinas after Hurricane Maria
Background
Climate change projections for Puerto Rico suggest an increase in the magnitude and frequency of intense cyclonic storms and extreme heat episodes (Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change, 2023). In 2017, Hurricane Maria became an icon of climate change as the deadly Category 5 hurricane caused 90 billion USD worth of damage, destroyed over 300,000 homes, left residents without electricity for months, and led to the loss of thousands of lives (Housing Recovery Support Function, 2018, Irvin-Barnwell et al., 2020). Government response after Hurricane Maria was inadequate; it took over six weeks for rural regions in Puerto Rico to receive support from municipal, territorial, and federal governments. Subsequently, communities throughout Puerto Rico lost faith in government support postdisaster leading to the emergence of “Centros de Apoyo Mutuo” (CAMs), or mutual aid centers as alternative social organizing movements throughout the archipelago (Murray, 2018). CAMs are a social grassroots movement that help Puerto Ricans transition from the cycle of dependency and paternalism caused by a century of corrupt policy and the colonial relation with the US. This social movement promotes autonomy and autogestión, which is the concept of self-management. These concepts were a response to understanding the roots of the disaster recovery and response issues (Vélez-Vélez & Villarrubia-Mendoza, 2020, 2021). In the rural community of Las Carolinas, several women established a CAM in 2017, operating out of a repurposed abandoned school.
Figure B: CAM Las Carolinas on a map of Puerto Rico
This CAM is run by women volunteers who have provided a variety of services for the community over the past six years, including hot lunch deliveries on a lunch route consisting of vulnerable residents and homeless populations, medical brigades, a thrift shop, and a public space for socialization and other events. They aim to develop into a resilience hub to help the community respond better to future disasters.
Project Goal & Objectives
This project designed a Disaster Rapid Response Mapping System that increases disaster preparedness capabilities for the CAM Las Carolinas to support their community. The following objectives provided structure and direction to our project goal:
1. Document post-disaster risks and assets of vulnerable populations within the Las Carolinas community.
2. Create a mapping system of the community’s risks and assets that informs disaster response protocol.
3. Propose a plan for the CAM resilience hub for preparation, resiliency, and post-disaster recovery with resources that respond to physical and social needs.
Methods
We employed a multi-method approach to achieve our objectives. We conducted 4 interviews with Las Carolinas leaders to understand the community’s response during previous disasters. We conducted 42 disaster preparedness surveys to understand household preparedness, assets, and risks. This information was then used to develop a mapping system for the CAM Las Carolinas to support rapid response post-disaster. We created the Disaster Rapid Response Mapping System (DRRMS) on Google My Maps to display our surveyed households’ locations, assets, and risks. We interviewed 6 mutual aid centers within and outside Puerto Rico and reviewed the literature on resilience hubs to offer short-term and long-term recommendations to design a resilience hub in the CAM Las Carolinas space.
Findings
Community members shared how the Las Carolinas community was underprepared and received inadequate government support after Hurricane Maria. From interviews, we learned that the community was left without power for six months and without water for two months. Many residents did not board up their windows, store supplies, or take basic precautions as they had not experienced the need to, having only encountered Category 2 and 3 hurricanes in the past. Due to the hilly terrain of the community, many homes were flooded and faced structural damage (Delia De Leon, personal correspondence, 2024). When aid arrived it was difficult to channel resources to those who needed them due to the lack of registered addresses and the complicated layout of the community. Our quantitative data collection reveals that the Las Carolinas community is underprepared for disaster and has inadequate emergency evacuation strategies. Their disaster preparedness was measured by the number of emergency items they owned as recommended by government agencies responsible for disaster response and the Caguas municipality. We also found that residents have a strong support network but have various vulnerabilities. Our data shows that most of the lunch route elderly community has at least one medical impairment, and this impacts their ability and motivation to prepare for disaster. Many residents also received aid from outside of the community during Maria, which could influence their level of disaster preparedness. Surveying residents exhibited higher confidence that their neighbors would help them during an emergency than faith in their own personal preparedness, arguably making them more disaster-prepared than the survey data shows. We also found that many lunch route residents have assets in their homes that they would be willing to share with the community. Leveraging the exchange of assets between community members could help build resilience.
Figure C: The DRRMS pilot in Las Carolinas showing surveys collected at the event in blue, and surveys collected house to house in yellow. Other nodes with items show household assets.
Recommendations
Based on our findings, we created three key recommendations to support resilience in Las Carolinas:
1) Expanding household data in the Disaster Rapid Response Mapping System (DRRMS)
Currently, there are 42 households on the map which can be scaled up to include the rest of the lunch route and community through surveys or other methods. Gathering more results on the assets and risks of the community will increase disaster preparedness. It will improve the accuracy of the quantity and types of items they could store and ensures that each households needs are understood and can be met post-disaster.
Figure D: Using the DRRMS to identify at-risk households
2) Holding disaster preparedness awareness activities
CAM volunteers can encourage the community to prepare for a disaster by holding educational events. This could include Community Emergency Response Trainings (CERT) (Baja, 2021).
The CAM volunteers could familiarize themselves with the DRRMS which contains household level information on residents’ assets and risks. Assets are skills or shareable resources, and risks are medical conditions or lack of resources. The CAM can use the DRRMS before a disaster to check in on high-risk households’ preparation measures, and to create a response plan before the disaster happens. Post-disaster, the system can be used to execute a response plan, distribute supplies, and direct external aid to at-risk households. By having this data in the form of a map, it creates a visual that is easily usable in a disaster response situation to increase quality and timeliness in an emergency.
Figure E: Room in the CAM that uses solar energy for the proposed resilience hub
3) Building a resilience hub
The CAM is dedicating a room in the school to serve as a resilience hub. This hub can be used to store emergency supplies, to act as a meeting place postdisaster, and to support long-term community resilience. Based on our survey Using data that assessed household preparedness, we recommend the CAM stock up on the following supplies that households do not have in addition to food and water (FEMA, 2021). From the survey results, the most lacked items were a seven-day supply of daily medications, battery powered radios, first aid kits, extra batteries, whistles, plastic sheeting, tape, and blankets. Estimates of the quantity of each item were calculated from an estimated population base of 90 households that the CAM currently serves and a minimum of 3-days without outside aid (US Department of Commerce, n.d.). We recommend that as the CAM community grows, the quantity and type of supplies stored be reassessed. There are social and health risks that the CAM can support that are associated with a mostly elderly population. Socialization services could include game nights, crafting or cooking classes, or cultural events held at the CAM (Enterprise Community Partners et al., n.d.). Many of the households expressed difficulty in getting to doctor’s appointments, so holding a regular medical clinic would be beneficial. Having access to holistic health services like acupuncture or yoga could act as both social engagement and help with chronic pain, stress, anxiety, and other conditions. These services could help strengthen the social cohesion of Las Carolinas.