June 29th, 2019

Being developed through a partnership between MIT Urban Risk Lab, Portland General Electric, Portland State University and the City of Portland, PREPHubs are innovative community-driven installations tacking disaster preparedness in the community around them.

On June 29th, Portland State University's Center for Public Interest Design organized an interactive planning session to inform PREPHub’s features and to help shape the way people engage with the PREPHub every day and in the event of a disaster. During this event, David Moses, lab’s project lead for the PREPHub project, interacted with the community partners and introduced the community to the design ideas behind PREPHub. The discussion focused on challenges and opportunities around community programming.

PREPHubs are designed to operate off-grid during and immediately after a disaster, providing vital services that include power, emergency communication equipment, information and emergency supplies provided by the City of Portland’s BEECN program. It will also be a place where people can charge their cell phones with power stored from the electric grid, supplemented with power generated by solar arrays and pedal-power. In non-disaster periods, PREPHubs are expected to function as interactive knowledge sharing nodes about disaster preparation and how people can become involved in preparedness.