For me – the summer of 2017 was an exciting one. I was coding my way through a small app called Handiworks. It was an app to streamline work requests and payments that I would use to go back to some of the more simple-life type of work I enjoy – being a plain old handyman.

What I didn’t know was that the tail end of the summer would bring 3 of the 10 worst natural disasters in US history, all in succession over a 3 week period, nor did I know I’d have to put a rusty set of skills to the test in a way I never had before.

Or that I’d ultimately (at least in my mind) fail to deliver what it was I sought to bring about in the first place despite 38,000 rescues, a relief map with 1200+ relief locations and volunteer opps, and a coalition who’s operations spanned from Houston to Puerto Rico in just under 4 weeks.

48 Hours before Harvey.

I somehow knew like I had in 2012 with Sandy that this was a different kind of storm. Call it an animal instinct. Something felt off in a way it hadn’t for years and I immediately starting teaching out to friends in Austin to get a sense of if there were response plans and if so who were planning at least some kind of local response in their community.

There wasn’t much yet as the storm hadn’t made landfall. So I started outreach, and organizing lists of any planned relief responses, shelters that would open and resource locations that folks could make use of.

As the storm began to make landfall I circulated the lists across social media.

A message popped up on twitter from a woman in San Francisco “is anyone mapping?” when I responded I am, and where to jump in and help, she jumped on it. Her name was Jess and she would go on to spearhead the relief map for the People Powered #HarveyRelief project.

I opened up my computer and quickly added a subdomain to Handiworks. harveyrelief.handiworks.co which was a mess of a domain name, a mess to look at but it was super fast, and a place to drop the first new map with the info I’d been organizing. Jess landed us free use of a mapping app shortly after and we were a bootstrapped team.

I tweeted the link and got the info out to the media and influencers who would amplify and get it to those who needed it most. The Weather Channel and others dropped the links first.

Within hours People Powered #HarveyRelief was born.

And yes the actual name was a hashtag so people would know where to find us. A request for Digital volunteers was added and went out to help Jess manage, update and grow the list I’d started days before.

Soon after – and with Jess’s help and with the help of digital volunteers now communicating with people on the ground and adding live relief info to the map – the size of the map grew, and so did its distribution online as the storm was in full swing.

72-96 hours into the storm.

I began to incorporate the project as a 501c3 and asked Jess to be our spokesperson, handling comms for me with the media as I began talks to onboard a partner org called AltGov, comprised of folks who worked for, and who had previously worked for varying branches of the US government.

AltGov would go on to build out and become the second half of the digital side of the project — Harvey Rescue. Live rescue mapping that would enable anyone with a boat to perform a rescue. Shortly after we launched a live rescue map as 911 was flooded with calls and folks trapped on their roofs took to social media for help. All were added to the second map. And I began to distribute the map to all grassroots organizations with access to boats. While putting out a call for individual boaters to work directly with our AltGov crew who had a few folks working direct dispatch between the maps and volunteer boaters we brought in.

At the same time, and knowing we needed to use our influence and reach to direct resources into the region after the storm I did what I did during Sandy and started looking for a warehouse.

Almost 1 week after landfall.

We had the first warehouse almost locked in. While a close friend egged me on to set up donation acceptance while he helped wrap up our 501c3 paperwork.

“You’re gonna need it to sustain this thing you know that”

…and of course he was right. I went to work rapidly setting up donation features but then stopped. Less than a week in, a second storm, looking nearly as bad as Harvey was incoming. Hurricane Irma.

I networked our Harvey maps as quickly as possible to every org that could use them. Palantir asked for an API so it’s partner orgs could use our maps instead of the interface we’d provided at harveyrelief.handiworks.co. National media asked me to speak. I could do neither. There was no time. And Jess, was overwhelmed mapping and managing volunteers on the relief side. Neither of us had slept well in days.

Rescues were now in full swing and our maps were being used everywhere. And then Irma made landfall.

Irma, the second storm.

Irma made Miami look like a scene from an end of the world movie. AltGov with their rescue mapping prowess wanted to branch to Florida. Partner orgs who’d been using our maps sent convoys of additional volunteer rescue boaters into Florida, but ended up halted by Florida state police under the direction of Governor Rick Scott and ultimately had to return home.

We could do nothing about Irma.

And ultimately I couldn’t leave Texas. I still needed a second warehouse, as the first one didn’t work out. I need to organize regional supply routes to a single place as the floodwaters subside. I knew this from Hurricane Sandy.

One finally popped up and we made it the central warehouse on our maps and directed everyone with large trailers of supplies to it. This would be the feeder to relief orgs and shelters that needed supplies. I partnered with 2 additional orgs for recovery and rapid remediation and launched the Harvey Relief Coalition – and it was all Hands-On.

My Digital team was exhausted. And unhappy with the insane pace, lack of impact with Hurricane Irma, and lack of funds. I’d just realized I’d put fundraising on the backburner and quickly threw up a donation feature and just as quickly forgot about it. And that was a major mistake.

These 3 things began to break the attempt to form a truly cohesive ground response that incorporated everyone from the Digital side.

What I wanted to build was failing.

Jess was exhausted and had to get back to her regular line of work. Deep down I’d hoped the media spotlight she’d gotten would suffice for her efforts. And that’s when Hurricane Maria hit.

Maria, the third storm.

My Digital volunteers were gone. Their work was complete but losing them was painful. Jess remained but she was on her last legs. I was in hyperfocus mode and all I could think of was, how do we get volunteers and supplies to Puerto Rico. There’s an ocean in the way.

Insert the Mayor of Houston. And The Cajun Air Lift

3 weeks into the storms.

Relief and Rapid Recovery were in full swing in Texas and there were a ton of excess supplies entering the region still. The mayor of Houston managed to get a massive cargo plane as Maria subsided and we filled it with excess supplies from the central warehouse and volunteers from our coalition.

Right here is where I lost Jess. And that was extremely painful. I turned down speaking engagements and additional media. Puerto Rico was next. We have to bridge the TX and P.R. relief efforts.

Obama and other presidents planned the One America Appeal relief concert in Texas (PR was being considered for official US statehood after being merely a territory for exactly 100 years) and it was all I could think about. How do I bridge Texas and Puerto Rico. It was a beautiful and highly unlikely solidarity that to me transcended the norm.

It was humanity at it’s finest and I had to see it happen.

The Maria relief efforts, week 4

The Houston mayor’s plane landed in San Juan with coalition volunteers and others filled with supplies from our central Houston warehouse. My phone rings right away.

“FEMA is commandeering all the supplies we just brought…”

We had scouts on the plane ready to work with churches around the island, to address the needs in different areas. They just needed supplies. I asked how FEMA plans to distribute the supplies?

“They won’t they’re putting them under lock and key” – was the response I got.

FEMA will take all supplies entering San Juan… It sort of Echoed in my head.

We need an air strip. The Louisianians can puddle jump supplies from Houston if we find one that’ll allow us to land. And we found 2, fast. 1 on the main island and a second in Vieques that was used to medivac injured folks from.

I turned back to Houston where mucking is in full swing and they need lists of homes. I use facebook to spread the word quickly making lists of folks in need to get to coalition muck teams. They’re crushing it rapidly savings homes. The One America Appeal concert begins. And Kat, one of our 3 coalition leaders, and newly minted mucking pro is brought up on stage by 5 presidents to receive an award. She was a wedding planner turned demolition-team expert in just under 30 days. It was surreal.

Back in Puerto Rico excess supplies are now moving into the region via the airstrips, and I sit back.. I’m totally cooked at this point. My job here is done.

I look down at my hammer.. beside my desk. The entire time organizing, I never left Boston Massachusetts. Although we got hit by the remnants of all 3 storms. I barely noticed.

The entire month was a blur.

A month or so later I launched Handiworks and went back to doing one of the things I loved in life. Being a handyman. Because of its simplicity. The simplicity didn’t last long, within 2 years we went commercial and had teams in Boston and NYC and sales scouts in Philly.

…sound familiar?

And then covid hit and wrecked it all.