Harvey rescuer retools app to feed Houstonians in need.
Sometimes, while directing pandemic operations from CrowdSource Rescue’s war room — which is to say, from his desk at home — Matthew Marchetti slips up. He means to say “volunteers” or “drivers.” But what he actually says is “rescuers.”
It’s easy to see why. CrowdSource Rescue was born during Hurricane Harvey when Marchetti headed out in a boat, helping members of his church, Chapelwood UMC, to ferry members to dry land. They could help even more people, he thought, if only they knew who needed rescuing.
He and his best friend, Nate Larson, write real-estate software. They’re good at map applications. So that night, in about six hours, they wrote a simple platform: one form for people who needed help; one for rescuers; and a map showing where help was needed. They added information for about 20 people and went to bed.
The floodwaters were still rising. 9-1-1 was overwhelmed.
The next morning, Larson woke to 1,300 people on the little site he’d built for church members. He watched as the number rose to 3,000. Then 7,000.
By Harvey’s end, the platform had helped coordinate the rescues of roughly 25,000 people. And CrowdSource Rescue was a thing.
When Hurricane Irma roared into Florida a couple of weeks later, CrowdSource Rescue was there. And then for floods and hurricanes in Loui
siana, Florida, Puerto Rico and North Carolina. They handled the earthquake in Mexico City.
Their calling, as Larson saw it: To help a ragtag volunteer army respond, at Zero Hour, to any “apocalyptic-vibe crisis.” To be there in that moment when 9-1-1 is overwhelmed, but before the bigger, stronger organizations can arrive — before the National Guard, before the Red Cross, before all the others.
Marchetti and Larson’s lives began to revolve around emergency response. They wrote code during the cool months of the year, and saved up so they’d be free for hurricane season. When they see a storm about three days from landfall, they make their best guess about where it’s heading and go there.
It’s sexy, exciting, adrenaline-junkie work. “CrowdSource Rescue is basically a bunch of tech nerds and response cowboys — people who come in with chainsaws and boats,” Marchetti says. “We’re not especially refined. On the comms, I swear a bunch.”
In December, Larson — a “germphobe,” Marchetti calls him — was getting apocalypse vibes from the coronavirus in China.
“Nah,” Marchetti told him. Besides, what could they do in a pandemic?
As the crisis grew grimmer, and people vulnerable to the virus were advised to stay home, Marchetti called Katherine
Tong, a Houston Food Bank manager whom he’d met at a conference. Houston Food
Bank, to his mind, was a big, grown-up, professional nonprofit — not like his ragtag bunch.
He asked Tong if maybe it might perhaps be a little useful if he and Larson could adapt their platform to connect people who needed food to people who could deliver it.
“Yes,” she told him. “Can you come in this afternoon?”
CrowdSource Resource activated in mid-March. Marchetti had a bad bout of impostor syndrome: Who were they fooling? What was the plan? Shouldn’t someone else be doing this? Some bigger, stronger, more grownup organization?
To his amazement, volunteers showed up — a different crew than the usual CrowdSource bunch. College students. A deacon. People from NASA. At first, CrowdSource tried not to accept drivers over 60 — they didn’t want to put them at risk — but a couple of stubborn seniors didn’t take no for an answer.
The first weeks’ startup chaos made Marchetti’s impostor syndrome worse. There was paperwork. There were protocols. He felt like a jerk, telling volunteers to stop, stop, stop letting little old ladies hug them.
He worried the volunteers would all leave. Delivering groceries isn’t sexy work. And unlike even the longest hurricane — even Harvey — there was no end in sight.
In a training the first week, someone asked, “When do the bigger organizations come in?”
Marchetti paused. With coronavirus hitting all across the globe, the usual federal groups and nonprofits were going to be stretched thin.
“I got bad news,” he said. “We are the response. It’s just us. Houston vs. the coronavirus. There are no white horses.”
But here’s the thing: On CrowdSource’s map, the red pins keep turning to green pins. People who need food become people who have food.
As of Wednesday, CrowdSource volunteers had fed more than 20,000 people. That blew Marchetti away.
The startup chaos is subsiding, but he still struggles not to cuss. He hasn’t gotten over his impostor syndrome. He still worries he won’t be able to recruit enough volunteers to keep up with the growing need.
He’s stopped trying to guess when CrowdSource will be able to demobilize. With normal apocalypse-vibe disasters, CrowdSource gets in and out. But not this time, not with this long, wearying, invisible disaster.
“It’s been Day Three of the hurricane for the last 15 days,” he says.
But he figures that Houston will, once again, show up to rescue its own.
He has, after all, seen it before. “I love Houston,” he says. “Resiliency is in our bones.
“Here, you see trouble, and you think, ‘Someone needs to help.’ And then you realize: You might need to be that person.”