Around the world, when environmental disasters strike, local CGI members spring into action to deliver necessary relief to affected areas.
In February 2020, CGI members were on-island during the over 6.0 rated earthquakes that shook the southwestern side of Puerto Rico causing millions of dollars of damage and destruction. CGI members quickly pulled together more than $600 to purchase supplies, and became a part of a huge convoy of personal vehicles driving needed supplies to the areas most impacted. CGI also helped out financially by directly donating $5,500 to help families that had severe damage to their homes.
In the summer of 2020, Taal Volcano on the island of Luzon in the Philippines erupted for the first time in 43 years, bringing destruction and displacing residents in the province of Batangas. Partnering with the Build a Life Foundation, our members collected and distributed food, water, clothes, and toiletries to 130 impacted families.
In the South Moravian region of the Czech Republic, a deadly category F4 tornado swept through several villages in June 2021. Twenty-two CGI members participated in the SOS Moravia fundraising event, helping bring much-needed aid to victims in the village of Mikulčice.
In July, prolonged torrential rainfall caused catastrophic flooding throughout western Europe. In response, we organized a volunteer effort to help. Approximately 30 members from various locations spent a day working to assist in the flood-devastated Ahr region of Germany.
And in the U.S., CGI members in Lafayette, Louisiana organized a food drive and sanitized beds for the Red Cross after Hurricane Ida came ashore in August. Our members collected over $1,500 worth of canned goods, healthy snacks, and drinks, and sanitized 500 beds.
In addition to volunteering to alleviate the effects of today’s environmental disasters, we continue to work with our clients to help our communities better prepare for tomorrow’s.
In the UK, we partnered with the European Space Agency (ESA) on the eSurge project, making satellite data more widely available to storm surge modelers and forecasters. eSurge enables better use of satellite data to help predict potentially disastrous storm surges.
Through another partnership with the ESA, we are developing a new service that combines recent advances in Earth observation (EO), artificial intelligence, and cloud computing to help better map and monitor wildfires. This wildfire mapping service will be available for free to the environmental community through the EO4SD Lab online data portal.
Finally, we are working with partners across the U.S. to design and deploy data management solutions for administering natural disaster recovery programs. From government organizations helping citizens rebuild after devastating hurricanes, to helping businesses navigate safety measures and bringing employees back to the office through a global pandemic, we are using digital technologies to create strategies and solutions that make the recovery process more manageable and transparent.
For example, in November, we renewed a contract with the Government of Puerto Rico to continue the disaster-recovery data management services tied to the Commonwealth’s rebuilding efforts in the wake of hurricanes Irma and Maria. The contract builds on an existing partnership with Puerto Rico, through which we provide capabilities for financial, grant and policy change management, program administration, data analytics, audit support, and systems integration—as well as a transparency portal that lets the public track how recovery funds are being used.
