Developers Spring to Action with #Sandy Relief: Apps and Resources

November 05, 2012
Written by

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The outpouring of support around Hurricane Sandy is incredible and humbling as people step up to donate, volunteer time and provide whatever help they can. We’ve been watching the developer community jump to action, building apps and tools for everything from local transit updates to hotlines for technical support.

New York, New Jersey and other areas in the North East are still very much in need, recovering from the hurricane’s destruction. See what these developers are building below, and read more about how you can help. Organizations like the Red Cross, FEMA, and  Save The Children, are all accepting donations to help the victims of Sandy.

Apps & Resources

Many businesses are dealing with downed communications following the storm even today still. Email hurricane@twilio.com and we have a team on hand to help redirect your numbers, set up a temporary voicemail and build out functionalities you might need.

New York Tech Meetup has a task team on call for technical assistance post-hurricane. Anything from system admin help to web development, text 646-392-7353.

Mobile Commons allows New Jersey and New York residents to text “WHERE” to 877 877 to find which polling places are still open in the wake of the storm, so they can cast their vote.

If you are in Staten Island, find out where you can volunteer and where help is needed on this crowdsourced interactive map built by New York-based developer Leif Percifield


And for New York, use Need Mapper to find outstanding requests of those in need, and locate the volunteers to lend a helping hand. NeedMapper was built by Jim Bricker of Order Mapper. If you are in need, text NEED to 607-269-HELP.

Oliver Blank and Earl Carlson built 60 Second Scoop to give you the latest news on power outages, available shelters, Red Cross station locations, and donated supplies in your area. Call 734-469-3998 to get the updates.

Hurricane Hackers have rallied together to build anything from real-time maps tracking Sandy’s wind patterns and water levels to forecasts of the storm. They’ve compiled a list of all their valuable resources as well as links to their open projects for you to contribute to on GitHub.

Alastair Coote set up a transit tracker so that people in New York could navigate public transportation while it was in flux last week and over the weekend. A huge help to those in the city, he’ll be updating his personal blog soon on how he built it.

A big thanks goes out to the entire developer community for their continued effort in helping victims of Sandy, showing their DOer spirit and altruism in a tough time.