In 2021, with Hurricane Ida bearing down on New Orleans, Pastor Gregory Manning of the Broadmoor Community Church was forced to cross state lines and evacuate to Houston, 347 miles away. Manning and his congregation were no strangers to extreme weather, flooding and power outages. During Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans in 2005, filthy water submerged the lower half of the church’s stained glass windows for weeks.
Fast forward 15 years, and as Manning sheltered from the ravages of Ida, he found himself reaching out to political and faith leaders with a fundamental question: what should we do to serve our communities under these conditions? Manning reminisced about those days recently to a group of advocates and organizers visiting his church.
“People are hot. People need food. People rely on power-operated medical devices. People need a way to power up.” Manning shared that more people died as a result of power outages in New Orleans than they did from storm-related flooding or falling trees, consistent with findings from other major storms.
That’s when Manning had the realization. Communities like his needed to stop waiting for the utility company to solve their problem, and to take matters into their own hands. Together with other pastors and elected officials such as U.S. RepTroy Carter, Manning started what is now known as Together New Orleans and its Community Lighthouse project.
People are hot. People need food. People rely on power-operated medical devices. People need a way to power up.
Gregory Manning
Pastor, Broadmoor Community Church
With support from his congregation, Manning raised funds from the government and private foundations to outfit Broadmoor Community Church with solar panels and battery storage. In 2022, the solar panels on the roof of the fellowship hall and four battery packs on the side of the building went live, and the church disconnected from the grid. Today, Manning manages the load on the system via an app on his phone.
Hurricane Francine tests Broadmoor’s Lighthouse
The first test of the church’s lighthouse came in September 2024, when Hurricane Francine made landfall in Louisiana as a Category 2 hurricane. Nearly half a million people lost power in that storm and parts of New Orleans, including the Broadmoor neighborhood, experienced severe flooding.
Manning recounted that the first person to pass through the door of Broadmoor’s Lighthouse during Francine was a young person who wanted to charge his phone. He did, and then came back later with some of his friends so they could do the same. Keeping phones charged so folks have access to communication is a critical need during times of crisis, according to Manning. In total, more than 200 people came to Broadmoor’s Lighthouse during and after Hurricane Francine.
Broadmoor’s Lighthouse aims to be open from 9am-5pm. Folks can borrow batteries to operate cooling fans in their homes. The Lighthouse offers a community refrigerator where people can store life-saving medicines, such as insulin. And the steady stream of reliable electricity from the solar panels and battery storage allows a food pantry that runs out of the fellowship hall to power its freezers and refrigerators, distributing 4,000 pounds of food each week. And the Lighthouse offers information about where folks can go if they need more assistance.
The challenge: recruiting lighthouse keepers
When asked what the biggest challenge he’s encountered so far in managing a Lighthouse, Manning said it’s putting together the members of a rock-solid disaster response team, who are committed to staying in the neighborhood regardless of what kind of disaster might be bearing down. It’s hard to convince volunteers to potentially put themselves in harm’s way in order to operate the Lighthouse, to open the doors, let people in, lend out the portable batteries, provide resources, and maintain the bathroom. He calls these volunteers “Lighthouse Keepers”.
Broadmoor Community Church was New Orleans’ first Lighthouse, but it’s not the last. In 2025, there are 24 Lighthouses up and running in New Orleans. Organizers at Together New Orleans are aiming to bring that number to 86, the vision being that, regardless of where one lives in the city, a Lighthouse is within a 15 minute walk.
If you have a story of how solar and energy storage has helped you or your loved ones weather the storm, please share your story below.
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Johanna directs strategy and staff for Environment America’s energy campaigns at the local, state and national level. In her prior positions, she led the campaign to ban smoking in all Maryland workplaces, helped stop the construction of a new nuclear reactor on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay and helped build the support necessary to pass the EmPOWER Maryland Act, which set a goal of reducing the state’s per capita electricity use by 15 percent. She also currently serves on the board of Community Action Works. Johanna lives in Amherst, Massachusetts, with her family, where she enjoys growing dahlias, biking and the occasional game of goaltimate.
