jews d

in
the

“There was
such a sense of
urgency and
importance
that I had to
keep doing this.”

— KASI NADLER

Grassroots Aid

Local woman
joins online
effort to
help rescue
hurricane
victims.

JENNIFER LOVY
CONTRIBUTING WRITER

ABOVE: Kasi Nadler was
glued to her computer
helping hurricane victims
via the internet.

18

September 21 • 2017

W

hat does the popular fan-
tasy/horror television show
Supernatural have to do with a
local woman and hurricane rescue efforts?
Turns out “huge fan” Kasi Nadler of West
Bloomfield learned, through an online
Supernatural fan group, of a grassroots
effort to help rescue those trapped by the
devastating floods caused by Hurricane
Harvey and then Hurricane Irma.
This online campaign, called
CrowdRescueHQ, needed volunteers to
serve in a number of capacities, includ-
ing people to scour social media sites like
Facebook and Twitter to look for online
pleas for help. With millions affected by the
deadly hurricanes, emergency responders
were inundated with 911 calls, and scores
of residents were without power or phone
service. Those trapped by rising floodwa-
ters turned to the internet for help.
Nadler, 46, saw the request for volunteers
and was compelled to help. “I wasn’t going
to fly to Texas, and I’m not in a position to
donate but I can do data entry,” she said.
After filling out an online volunteer
application over Labor Day weekend,
Nadler was asked to search Twitter for
hashtags that were hurricane specific such
as #HarveySOS. When she came across a
request for help, her job was to enter the
person’s name, address and phone number
into a centralized database and check for
duplicate entries. The information col-
lected was subsequently disseminated to
volunteer rescuers, the Coast Guard and
local authorities.

jn

When she wasn’t at work, Nadler, a psy-
chologist at Havenwyck Hospital in Auburn
Hills, sat glued to her computer eagerly
searching for requests for assistance and
inputting the information in a rescue data-
base.
She watched as people posted initial
messages stating: “We need help.” After a
few hours, according to Nadler, their online
pleas became increasingly urgent as vic-
tims tweeted things like: “The water is up
to our necks. We don’t know what to do.”

COMPELLED TO HELP

Getting by on as little as four hours of sleep
a night, Nadler found it difficult to break
away from her computer. “I kept thinking,
‘If I could help one more person,’” she said.
“There was such a sense of urgency and
importance that I had to keep doing this.”
While it’s hard to know exactly how
many people Nadler helped, through the
efforts of CrowdRescueHQ, 700-plus volun-
teers from around the world helped facili-
tate the rescue of more than 6,000 people.
Nadler marveled at the efficiency of this
group, which literally popped up and orga-
nized overnight as a direct response to the
catastrophic impact of Harvey, a Category
4 hurricane that devastated Houston.
Christie St. Clair, one of the organiz-
ers of CrowdRescueHQ, said the genesis
of the group happened while she and a
group of online friends watched in hor-
ror as so many Houston residents found
themselves unable to get help during the
storm. Within 30 minutes, someone cre-

ated a Google spreadsheet of those in need.
After an hour, there was a Google map to
aid rescuers. Their crowdsourcing efforts
snowballed from there.
“It all happened so fast,” said St. Clair, a
Virginia resident. “Within 24 hours, we had
at least 600-700 volunteers and a system in
place to help them. During a natural disas-
ter, the world wants to help. We found a
way to harness that. We don’t accept dona-
tions in any way. We want to use the power
of individual people to do good.”
With the help of companies like Google,
as well as Tableau, a data visualization
software company, and Fulcrum, a mobile
data collection platform, CrowdRescueHQ
improved inefficiencies in their quickly
organized system. So now, for example,
volunteers like Nadler don’t have to look
for duplicate rescue needs.
As the recues began winding down,
CrowdRescueHQ organizers saw the emo-
tional toll emergency response work took
on its volunteers; some of whom have been
calling the victims to check in on them.
And, as a response, CrowdRescueHQ start-
ed a self-care program for its volunteers.
Nadler said that while she is saddened
by the extensive devastation and loss
caused by the hurricanes, her experience
working in a maximum security residen-
tial facility, where she sees tragedies daily,
made it less stressful for her than perhaps
others.
“I’m thankful to have been there to
help people through this traumatic time,”
Nadler said. •

