Caring Chefs Develop a New Model for Delivering Emergency Meals to Survivors of Catastrophes

Illustration by Edward W. Tyszkiewicz

A terrorist event, an active shooter, a serious accident, a natural disaster, or other high-stakes crisis can affect anyone, any time. The good news is that you don’t need to have super-human strength and abilities to help yourself and your community in a high-stakes crisis. If you want to help and are ready to improvise in small groups with other people on the scene, you can act heroically with others to save lives. 

Through studying case studies of rapid rescues and instant innovations in accidents, disasters and emergencies, I uncovered the improvisational abilities that people in small groups can use to address high-stakes crises with other people on the scene. in what I call the Heroic Improv Cycle©. In this article, I present “ripped from the headlines” case studies of ordinary people following what I call the Heroic Improv Cycle© to save lives and what you can do, if you are in a similar situation.

For more information on how the Heroic Improv Cycle© works and the Heroic Improv Program© training: check out www.heroic-improv.com.

“Who else can take raw ingredients that are seemingly unassociated and make them into delicious food and do it under extreme pressure?” Chef José Andrés, quoted in New York Times, Oct. 30, 2017

When Hurricane Maria blasted Puerto Rico on September 20, 2017, it destroyed buildings, knocked out the island’s power grid, decimated crops, and left many of the island’s 3.4 million people struggling to survive. Five days later, DC-based Chef José Andrés arrived in Puerto Rico and his nonprofit World Central Kitchen (founded after the 2011 earthquake in Haiti) arrived to help cook hot emergency meals for survivors.

Chef Andrés expected that he and World Central Kitchen volunteers would do what they had after Hurricane Harvey in Houston—help prepare a few thousand emergency meals, donate some money, and head back home after a few weeks. He never imagined how the scale and accomplishments of the undertaking in Puerto Rico would evolve. Within just a few weeks, Chef Andrés and other World Central Kitchen volunteers had developed an island-wide network of kitchens, supply services, and food delivery services and created a whole new model for preparing and delivering food to survivors after a devastating natural disaster.

When he first arrived in San Juan, Chef Andrés connected with his friend and fellow chef Jose Enrique. Mr. Enrique’s small restaurant in San Juan had rain coming through the roof and no power. Nevertheless, the two chefs and their helpers pulled out food in the freezer, located a gas generator, bought up aluminum pans, and with the help of volunteers started preparing large batches of a hearty Puerto Rican stew on the street in front of the restaurant. “We decided we would just start cooking,” said Mr. Enrique. They recruited the owners of a few food trucks to help in deliver food to the neighborhoods that needed them most. Every day, the number of people they were feeding doubled, and more cooks arrived to help.

As the number of survivors in need of food aid became apparent, Chef Andrés and World Central Kitchen formed partnerships with other aid groups and large food companies. In a short time, they had taken over the biggest indoor arena in the country (the Coliseo de Puerto Rico) in San Juan to build out a central kitchen to feed more people. They got a chain of vocational schools to open their kitchens to become 18 satellite feeding kitchens and coordinated meals for survivors in far-flung places outside of San Juan with satellite phones, Whatsapp, and paper maps. Chef Andrés’ Twitter feed became a source of news and commentary about what was going on in Puerto Rico.

At the height of their food operations, volunteer crews catalyzed by World Central Kitchen were preparing and delivering more than 120,000 hot meals and sandwiches every day to survivors in all 78 of Puerto Rico’s municipalities. The cost of $300,000 to $400,000 per day (including transportation and hotel costs for chefs and staff members, as well as payments to food truck owners who took meals into isolated neighborhoods) was covered through donations to World Central Kitchen and Federal Emergency Management Agency contracts.

At the end of October 2017, World Central Kitchen began scaling back their feeding operations in Puerto Rico. They closed down the main cooking operation in the coliseum in San Juan and several other kitchens. “At this point in Puerto Rico’s recovery, cooking and distributing too much free food could swamp the emerging economy,” said Andrés. For the foreseeable future, the organization will use a more strategic approach aimed at feeding the elderly, the sick, and people in remote communities of the island.

World Central Kitchen’s ability to scale up an emergency feeding operation for the survivors of a catastrophic hurricane in Puerto Rico follows the Heroic Improv Cycle© . When Chef Andrés arrived on the island five days after the hurricane, he immediately recognized that the scope of the need in Puerto Rico was vastly greater than he had anticipated. There was no power on the island, and the government’s response was slow. Many hurricane survivors lacked clean water and food. (Step 1: Alert: Sharpen perception and awareness of problem at hand.). Chef Andrés reached out to local San Juan chef Jose Enrique and scoured the area for resources like volunteer cooks, pans, and generators (Step 2: Ready: Find resources and overcome communication barriers to address the problem.). The two chefs gathered volunteers to help cook hot meals for survivors on the street in front of Enrique’s restaurant in San Juan and met with the owners of food trucks about possible deliveries (Step 3: Connect: Form a team quickly.). The volunteers in initially focused on providing freshly cooked meals to hurricane survivors in San Juan or nearby (Step 4: Focus: Aim attention to solve the problem.). The team of volunteers provided hot meals to hurricane survivors who showed up at the restaurant or to whom they could easily deliver food (Step 5: Move: Shift into action together.). As the huge number of Puerto Ricans going hungry after the devastating hurricane became apparent, Chef Andrés and other World Central Kitchen volunteers continued to rapidly prototype solutions until they were able to scale up operations to provide hot meals to hundreds of thousands of hurricane survivors, including survivors in remote areas of the island.

Chef Jose Andrés expressed the spirit of Heroic Improv with this quote in the New York Times article of October 30, 2017, “At the end, I could not forgive myself if I didn’t try to do what I what I though was right. We need to think less and dream less and just make it happen.”

More about Chef José Andrés and the World Central Kitchen’s activities in Puerto Rico and elsewhere here:

• Chefs step up relief efforts in Puerto Rico as food supplies run low, Eater, October 11, 2017.
• José Andrés fed Puerto Rico, and may change how aid is given, New York Times, Oct. 30, 2017: www.nytimes.com/2017/10/30/dining/jose-andres-puerto-rico.html
• Following Puerto Rico, José Andrés says his nonprofit may focus more on relief work, Washington Post, Oct. 27, 2017: www.washingtonpost.com/news/food/wp/2017/10/27/following-puerto-rico-jose-andres-says-his-nonprofit-may-focus-more-on-relief-work/?utm_term=.b1fd617c56fe
• A chef will wind down his crusade to feed Puerto Rico, New York Times, Oct. 25, 2017: www.nytimes.com/2017/10/25/dining/jose-andres-puerto-rico.html
• World Central Kitchen: www.worldcentralkitchen.org/
• More information on Heroic Improv Program© training at www.heroic-improv.com or dr.mary@heroic-improv.com

Rapid Rescue by a School Bus Driver and Bystanders to Help Victims of a Terrorist Attack

Illustration by Edward W. Tyszkiewicz 

A terrorist event, an active shooter, a serious accident, a natural disaster, or other high-stakes crisis can affect anyone, any time. The good news is that you don’t need to have super-human strength and abilities to help yourself and your community in a high-stakes crisis. If you want to help and are ready to improvise in small groups with other people on the scene, you can act heroically with others to save lives. 

Through studying case studies of rapid rescues and instant innovations in accidents, disasters and emergencies, I uncovered the improvisational abilities that people in small groups can use to address high-stakes crises with other people on the scene in what I call the Heroic Improv Cycle©. In my blog, I present “ripped from the headlines” case studies of ordinary people following what I call the Heroic Improv Cycle© to save lives. 

For more information on how the Heroic Improv Cycle© works: Check out www.heroic-improv.com/blog

On October 31, 2017, in what New York Mayor Bill de Blasio later termed “an act of terrorism . . . aimed at innocent civilians,” a 29-year-old, Uzbek-born man named Sayfullo Saipov went on murderous rampage with a rented Home Depot flatbed pickup truck in lower Manhattan. Saipov later told authorities that he had been inspired to carry out the truck attack by Islamic State videos, which urge supporters to inflict as much carnage on “the enemies of Allah” as possible.

Saipov began his rampage at about 3 p.m., driving the rented truck nearly a mile on a popular biking and walking path near the Hudson River and killing at least eight people and wounding many others. Saipov then slammed the truck directly into the side of a school bus carrying children with special needs and got out of the truck and shouted “Allahu Akbar,” an Arabic phrase that means “God is Great.” In a hail of gunfire that subsequently erupted, Saipov was shot in the stomach and taken into custody by the New York police.

Thinking quickly, the driver of the school bus, whose name has not been released, quickly guided the bus to a safer side street and began yelling for help in rescuing the children still inside the mangled school bus. Sebastian Sobczak, who happened to be walking by and who had begun filming the incident when gunfire erupted, alerted nearby police, asked someone to call 911, and yelled for an ambulance. Very quickly, police and firefighters arrived on the scene to help. A 14-year-old girl on the bus suffered a fractured hip, internal bleeding, and a laceration to the liver. A 17-year-old boy was injured less seriously. Sobczak called the bus driver, who selflessly remained in the line of fire consoling one of the trapped children despite being injured himself, a hero.

Sobczak’s real-time video of the aftermath of the crash of the school bus shows how different people helped rescue the trapped children using the five steps of the Heroic Improv Cycle©. When the truck slammed into the school bus, the bus driver immediately recognized that this was not an ordinary traffic accident (Step 1: Alert: Sharpen perception and awareness of problem at hand.). The driver of the school bus, though injured himself, moved the bus to a side street, and got out of the bus to look for help in removing the trapped children still in the bus (Step 2: Ready: Find resources and overcome communication barriers to address the problem.). The driver screamed for help from a bystander who immediately alerted first responders to the situation (Step 3: Connect: Form a team quickly.). The team focused on helping the child stuck in the tangled wheelwell of the bus (Step 4: Focus: Aim attention to solve the problem.). Very quickly, police and firefighters used equipment to remove the trapped children and get the bus driver and other victims of the crash to safety (Step 5: Move: Shift into action together.).

• For more about the school bus incident, check out: http://abcnews.go.com/US/nyc-terror-attack-dramatic-video-shows-mangled-school/story?id=50890946
• For more about Heroic Improv and how you can develop a survivor mindset with the Heroic Improv Program© training, check out:  www.heroic-improv.com or contact dr.mary@heroic-improv.com

Heroic Improv by the Passengers and Crew on Flight #93 to Thwart a Terrorist Plot

This case study illustrates how the passengers and crew on Flight #93 quickly banded together to thwart a terrorist attack in Washington, D.C., September 11, 2011.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, al Qaeda terrorists on a suicide mission hijacked four passenger airplanes to carry out a coordinated attack on the United States. The hijackers of the first two planes deliberately crashed the planes into the World Trade Center complex in New York City, causing a massive conflagration that killed thousands of people. The hijackers of the third plane crashed the plane into the Pentagon, in Arlington, Virginia. 

Used with permission.  www.danaverkourten.com

This illustration is an artist's rendition of what happened on Flight 93, when this group of strangers became a team to thwart the terrorists.

The takeoff of Flight #93 was delayed, so by the time the al Qaeda hijackers were able to overtake the cockpit, the other three planes had already hit their targets. A radio transmission from Flight #93 at 9:28 a.m. captured the sound of a struggle in the cockpit and the hijackers incapacitated the pilot and co-pilot. They said they had a bomb on board and told the passengers and remaining crew to remain seated and be quiet. Then they reprogrammed the plane’s autopilot system to fly the plane to Washington, D.C., probably intent on destroying the U.S. Capitol or the White House.


The 40 passengers and crewmembers on Flight #93 quickly realized the gravity of their situation and within just 30 minutes had developed and implemented a plan to thwart the plans of the al Qaeda hijackers. My analysis of their actions indicates that the passengers and crew on Flight #93 followed the five steps of the Heroic Improv Cycle© to save lives. They realized that their plane had been hijacked (Step 1: Alert: Sharpen perception and awareness of problem at hand.). Many passengers then began using phones on the plane’s seatbacks to call their families, friends, and authorities to report the hijacking (Step 2: Ready: Find resources and overcome communication barriers to address the problem.). From these phone calls, they learned the shocking news that three other hijacked planes had already hit the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Realizing that the gravity of their situation, the passengers and crew banded together spontaneously to come up with a plan of action (Step 3: Connect: Form a team quickly.). They decided that they needed to try to storm the cockpit to regain control of the plane (Step 4: Focus: Aim attention to solve the problem.). Todd Beamer, who had used an onboard phone to call the Federal Bureau of Investigation, gave the signal for the counterattack with the now famous words, “Let’s roll.” At 9:57 a.m., the passengers charged the cockpit door to try regain control of the plane from the hijackers (Step 5: Move: Shift into action together.).

As the unarmed passengers charged the cockpit door, the hijackers tried to disrupt the assault by rocking the plane back and forth and tipping the nose up and down. The passengers continued their assault, forcing the hijackers to crash the plane in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The 40 passengers and crew of Flight #93 did not act as a "soft target.” Through their quick and determined actions, they reversed the predator/prey dynamic and saved many lives. For more information about the Flight #93 story and a montage of the passengers and crew, see the Flight 93 National Memorial website: https://www.nps.gov/flni/learn/photosmultimedia/virtualtour.htm.

Ripped from the headlines: Case studies of Heroic Improv

A terrorist event, an active shooter, a serious accident, a natural disaster, or other high-stakes crisis can affect anyone, any time. The good news is that you don’t need to have super-human strength and abilities to help yourself and your community in a high-stakes crisis. If you want to help and are ready to improvise in small groups with other people on the scene, you can act heroically with others to save lives.

Through studying case studies of rapid rescues and instant innovations in accidents, disasters and emergencies, I uncovered the spontaneous team abilities that people in small groups use to address high-stakes crises with other people on the scene in what I call the Heroic Improv Cycle©.

Heroic Improv Cycle©

Used with permission.  www.lloyddangle.com

The Heroic Improv Cycle© has five steps:
· Step #1: Alert­­­—Sharpen awareness of awareness of the crisis situation using your five senses.
· Step #2: Ready—Identify and communicate with people who might help you and locate material resources in your immediate surroundings that might be used in responding to the situation.
· Step #3: Connect—Quickly form a small group with 16 or fewer people and commit to collaboratively solving the problem at hand.
· Step #4: Focus—Think about what must be done by the group to address the problem until someone­—whoever comes up with an idea first—signals the next step the group should take. The focus of the action is driven by the problem and is determined using the principle of fluid, collaborative leadership.
· Step #5: Move—Shift into action, responding to what one member of the group has signaled the focus should be and assess the results. Early attempts to find a solution may not be entirely successful, so the entire cycle may have to be repeated until success is achieved. People desire to help, commit to the action, and work through the cycle. Each cycle generates discovery, experimentation, and exploration that informs the next cycle. At some point, an effective approach to the problem at hand emerges.

In this section of my blog, I present “ripped from the headlines” case studies of ordinary people following the Heroic Improv Cycle© to save lives.