Roku to feature Selma rebuilding efforts in new series 'Team Rubicon'
The Roku Channel will premiere its new streaming series “Team Rubicon” on May 25, featuring the veteran-led disaster response nonprofit and its journey to help communities like Selma recover from catastrophes.
When a tornado tore a path through Selma on Jan. 12, all sorts of camera crews rushed into the Queen City. Much of that footage went live within hours of it being taken, publicizing the magnitude of destruction the community faced.
Now, four months later, the public will get a new look into the Selma storm and the hundreds of volunteers who stepped up to help in its wake through “Team Rubicon.”
The series comes from the production team behind PBS’s “This Old House.” It will consist of 13 30-minute episodes hosted by Kevin O’Connor, a TV personality who underwent training to become a volunteer with the nonprofit during the process of filming.
“We were on the ground the day after the tornado hit,” domestic operations vice president Jeff Byard said. “One of our main metrics is the social vulnerability index. So you know, we want to work where there's underinsured or no insurance. That's, that's the people that need the most help after a disaster.”
Byard organized 61 Team Rubicon operations across the country this year alone, but being a Prattville resident, the Selma project was especially important to him. They called it Operation 54 Miles, the distance that civil rights activists marched from Selma to Montgomery to demand voting rights in 1965.
“Just as coincidence, we worked in Selma for 54 days,” Byard said.
During that time, Team Rubicon deployed about 265 volunteers to work on over 370 homes impacted in the storm. They cleared trees and debris, tarped homes to prevent further rain damage and removed drywall and sheetrock damaged beyond repair.
Since then, the team has returned, transitioning from an emergency response to a rebuilding effort. They’re helping people make their homes livable again.
This is not Team Rubicon’s first venture into the Black Belt — previously helping Selma recover from Hurricane Zeta and the 2021 tornado — and Byard said it probably won’t be the last.
Beyond Alabama, the Roku documentary series will also follow Team Rubicon’s response to Hurricane Ian in Florida, atmospheric river storms in California and ongoing rebuild projects in places like Puerto Rico and Houston, Texas.
“I hope people find inspiration in this,” CEO Art delaCruz said. “Another outcome of this is I hope people understand that what people have to endure in a recovery cycle extends way beyond the news. I mean, we're still rebuilding houses in Houston as a result of Hurricane Harvey, which happened in 2017.”
On average, a $1 billion disaster happens every 18 days in the United States, compared to what was every 82 days in the 1980s, according to Climate Central research. Team Rubicon has responded to all seven that occurred this year, plus 54 others.
“We hear about just a fraction of the actual disasters that happen, and those are the ones that get the most attention and get the most funding,” delaCruz said. “We find out who has the highest vulnerability, who has the largest gap between available resources in need, and that's where we'll flow to and stay as long as we can, provided we have volunteers, we continue to have funding and the work that we're doing is meaningful to those people.”All 13 episodes of “Team Rubicon” will be available to stream for free on The Roku Channel starting May 25, and information on how to donate and volunteer can be found on the nonprofit’s website.
Hadley Hitson covers the rural South for the Montgomery Advertiser and Report for America. She can be reached at hhitson@gannett.com. To support her work, subscribe to the Advertiser or donate to Report for America.
This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Team Rubicon docu-series premieres on the Roku Channel featuring Selma
