Safety Comes First
- Marin Power is a community resilience project, not an emergency response agency.
- The program is designed to provide a limited, supplemental source of mobile pumping capacity during severe storms and prolonged power outages.
- It will never be worth putting a volunteer, homeowner or member of the public in unreasonable danger.
- When conditions are unsafe, the correct decision is not to deploy.
What Marin Power Does
Marin Power is designed to:
- Provide standardized portable pumps and related equipment
- Match appropriate pumps with qualified EVs
- Train and coordinate participating volunteers
- Establish and evaluate predetermined deployment locations
- Provide temporary pumping capacity where it can materially reduce flooding
- Operate independently of the electrical grid when appropriate
- Learn from each deployment and improve the system over time
- Marin Power is designed around self-matching: the right resources are matched to the right locations through preparation, assessment and coordination.
It is not a self-service emergency system.
What Marin Power Does Not Do
Marin Power will not:
- Replace fire, police, medical or professional emergency response
- Replace municipal flood-control systems
- Replace permanent pump stations
- Replace PG&E
- Operate municipal infrastructure
- Connect volunteer EVs to municipal electrical systems
- Connect volunteer EVs to municipal pump equipment
- Enter or drive through dangerous floodwater
- Ask untrained volunteers to perform hazardous electrical work
- Pump water to an unsafe or unauthorized discharge location
- Deploy equipment simply because a location is flooded
- Promise that a home will remain dry
- Guarantee that equipment or volunteers will be available during every storm
The project exists to provide one specific, limited capability:
- Temporary pumping where it can safely make a meaningful difference.
- Volunteers Are Not Emergency Responders
- Participating EV owners and other volunteers are community volunteers.
They are not expected to:
- Enter dangerous areas
- Rescue people or animals
- Direct traffic
- Perform search and rescue
- Assess structural damage
- Perform professional electrical work
- Operate municipal equipment
- Remain at a location when conditions become unsafe
A volunteer’s responsibility is limited to the role for which they have been trained.
No volunteer is expected to take an unreasonable risk to make a deployment succeed.
No Driving Through Floodwater
Marin Power will not ask an EV volunteer to drive through flooded roads to reach a deployment location.
- A vehicle is valuable because it can provide power.
- It is not a flood-rescue vehicle.
- If the designated location cannot be reached safely, the deployment may be delayed or canceled.
Sometimes the safest deployment decision is not to deploy at all.
Preparedness Is Part of Safety
The strongest protection against an unsafe deployment is preparation.
Participating locations should be evaluated before an emergency so that Marin Power can determine, in advance:
- Whether pumping could materially help
- Where equipment can safely be positioned
- Where water can appropriately be discharged
- What equipment is required
- What type of EV can support it
- How volunteers can safely access the location
- What conditions should trigger deployment, delay or cancellation
Good preparation gives volunteers permission to say no when conditions are unsafe.
That is part of the system working as designed.