Going Long on Resiliency: A Tale of Civic Tech, Hydrants & Drains

Back in 2011, I was a part of a fantastic team at a nonprofit organization called Code for America. We embarked on a project to create a tool called Adopt-a-Hydrant, a novel initiative designed to encourage civic engagement by allowing residents to "adopt" fire hydrants in their locality and commit to keeping them clear of snow during winter months. This program was started in collaboration with the Boston Fire Department and Emergency Management, and right at launch, we saw about 100 volunteers adopt hydrants across the city.

The whole endeavor was truly exciting and celebrated as a model for modern civic engagement, so much so that its opensource code was reused and adapted, meeting different needs across different locales over the next few years, such as Providence, Anchorage, Chicago, and even Honolulu, where the code was adapted for Adopt-a-Siren, a program that allows volunteers to check for dead batteries in tsunami sirens across the city.

But, even with city adoption, citizen use was limited. Even the initial implementation in Boston struggled to gain adoption. So at the time, I couldn't help but feel a tad skeptical about its future impact. It just wasn't clear to me that people would sign up, let alone actually shovel out nearby hydrants. Indeed, I had been told that "people don't want up wanting to be civic."

Maybe. But, I've learned, sometimes people have to be civic.

Fast forward to 2015, the city of San Francisco creatively repurposed the same codebase we used for Adopt-a-Hydrant to create Adopt-a-Drain. This program was designed to address the issue of maintaining more than 25,000 storm drains in the city, a task that the city's crews found overwhelming. The system allowed volunteers to adopt a drain and commit to its regular cleaning, offering a little bit of fun by granting naming rights over the storm drain of their choice. This led to amusing and quirky names like ”Thirsty Boi," "You're So Drain," and "Drainmond Green.” Again, the initial use of this tool was limited, but it set the stage for something inspiring.

In the winter of 2022/2023, a massive storm hit the Bay Area, causing severe flooding in many cities. The storm brought some positive attention to San Francisco's Adopt-a-Drain program, making it onto the local news. Over 4,000 drains were regularly cleaned by local good Samaritans, showing an inspiring testament to civic responsibility. It was heartening to see the tool we had created years ago put to such great use in a time of need.

These stories highlight a critical lesson for cities and governments: investing in resiliency and emergency-oriented technology may not provide immediate returns, but these investments can pay off significantly in times of crisis. It's about going long on resiliency, investing early and often in tools and technologies that may lie dormant until a time of need.

In conclusion, the journey from Adopt-a-Hydrant to Adopt-a-Drain and beyond has been a humbling and inspiring one. It serves as a testament to the power of civic technology and the potential of open-source solutions to foster civic engagement and bolster our collective resiliency. The joy and sense of community these programs have brought to the cities, even amidst challenging times, are immeasurable.

And to the cities and governments out there: remember, when it comes to resiliency and emergency technology, it's a marathon, not a sprint. So let's go long.