Gabrielle Russon
After the next hurricane hits Orlando, residents can access Wi-Fi at shaded picnic tables or charge their phones in air-conditioned neighborhood centers running with expanded power.
Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer highlighted the city’s efforts to prepare for the next disaster and a widespread outage during a panel Thursday at the U.S. Mayors Conference held in Tampa.
Dyer called the picnic tables his “favorite” in the city’s resilience plans.
“We call them tables of connection, and they are solar-powered, shaded picnic tables that are Wi-Fi spots, and they have charging stations,” Dyer said. “They can withstand 175 mph winds, and they are fantastic to have.”
The city rolled out a pilot program with two tables and plans to expand them to 12 more parks, he said.
Even during the good times, the Wi-Fi picnic table hotspots will still be available in neighborhoods that lack broadband capability, Dyer said.
As part of the city’s resilience plan, Orlando also obtained a $1 million National Science Foundation grant and partnered with the University of Central Florida to build a solar-powered trailer that can charge devices, refrigerate perishable food and give a blast of air conditioning.
“We’re able to take it into any of our neighborhoods,” Dyer said. “And then when we’re in periods where we don’t need it to respond, we’re doing STEM education and preparedness training in various neighborhoods.”
With a nearly $3 million state grant, the city is adding backup power to six neighborhood centers so post-hurricane, residents can again get W-Fi and outlets to charge if there are widespread power outages. The neighborhood centers would also serve as the distribution points to help residents get supplies, Dyer said.
Dyer, who is in his final sixth term as Orlando’s mayor, said he was inspired by visiting Chicago City Hall in 2006 and seeing its green roof. That kicked off the Orlando’s efforts to make more environmentally sustainable changes.
“It made me think, ‘wow, if Chicago can do this, Orlando needed to be in the same space,’” Dyer said. “Our goal was to be the most sustainable city in the Southeast United States. And by my subjective standard, we have achieved that. Other objective standards would also say we’ve achieved that.”
“We take sustainability very seriously.”
