2024 Reports

An Integrative Approach to Community Climate Resilience in Red Hook, Brooklyn

Camponeschi, Chiara

Faced with service disruptions and institutional failures during Hurricane Sandy, residents of Red Hook organized their own emergency relief with interventions ranging from urgent medical care to post-disaster recovery. Learning from lived experience, Red Hook then facilitated a participatory process to develop its own Community Disaster Readiness Plan, implementing innovative features such a free, community-owned, solar-powered wifi network, ‘disaster drill’ days and programs for economic and social empowerment. Today, Red Hook continues to plan intersectional interventions that contribute to a more responsive and robust vision of climate resilience and adaptation, insisting on a more sophisticated understanding of vulnerability to inform the achievement of equitable resilience outcomes. Municipalities, community coalitions and other stakeholders have a wealth of inspiration and best practices to draw from when considering ‘adapting and adopting’ Red Hook’s case study for their own context.