Tish Tablan
Senior Program Director
Here’s something you might not know: more than half of FEMA’s official disaster shelters are… schools.
That’s right — your neighborhood elementary, middle, or high school is more than a place for learning. It’s also where families gather when hurricanes, wildfires, or floods force them from their homes. Schools are already the backbone of America’s emergency shelter system.
But there’s a catch: most of these shelters aren’t ready for the one thing natural disasters typically bring — power outages.
The problem
Generation180’s new issue brief, Unlocking the Potential of Schools as Community Resilience Hubs, reveals that over 34,000 schools across the country double as disaster shelters. That’s one in three schools nationwide. Yet, less than 0.1% of public K-12 schools have onsite battery energy storage systems that keep the lights, HVAC, refrigeration, and medical equipment running when the grid goes down.
In other words: when communities need schools the most, too many risk going dark.
And the stakes are rising. Weather-related FEMA disaster declarations have more than tripled since 1990, and between 2017–2019 alone, two-thirds of U.S. students lived in counties that experienced a federally declared disaster.
The opportunity
The good news? We already have the tools to fix this. Clean energy solutions — solar paired with battery storage — are proven, affordable, and ready to go.
Take Dennis-Yarmouth Regional High School on Cape Cod in Massachusetts. When two tornadoes ripped through the region in 2019 and cut power to 45,000 people, the school opened its doors to area residents as a resilient community shelter. Why? Because it had a solar + battery storage system installed years earlier. Students, teachers, and neighbors could rely on the school to keep them safe until the storm passed.
Other communities are starting to lean on schools to develop resilient shelters. Santa Barbara Unified School District in California recently finished installing resilient solar microgrids at six of its school sites, after experiencing wildfires and mudslides that shut down much of the county for two weeks. In Albuquerque, New Mexico, Atrisco Heritage Academy High School already serves as a community health clinic and a community gathering space for its diverse community. The school district is already working to install the infrastructure needed to develop a community resilience hub on campus.
Now imagine if every school shelter in the country had that kind of resilience.
Why schools?
Schools are trusted partners that anchor communities during good times and bad. By investing in solar microgrids at schools, we’re not just preparing for the next natural disaster — we’re:
- Keeping people safe when the grid goes down.
- Saving money on energy bills year-round.
- Cutting pollution and building a healthier future.
- Educating students by turning schools into living labs for clean energy.
That’s a win-win-win-win.
What needs to happen
Generation180 is calling for action:
- School districts: Start evaluating solar + storage options for your shelter schools. (Our Electrify Our Schools program can help.)
- Federal and state leaders: Expand funding for resilience at schools, especially in high-risk or underserved communities.
- Everyone else: Recognize schools for what they are — the foundation of our national shelter system. Provide schools with the resources and support the need to develop into self-sufficient community resilience hubs.
Be ready, be resilient
September is National Preparedness Month, a reminder that disasters aren’t a matter of “if,” but “when.” With extreme weather intensifying and federal preparedness budgets under threat, now’s the time to invest in resilience where it matters most.
Every school that installs a solar microgrid is more than just a building with backup power. It becomes a beacon of safety and hope for the entire community.
