In late October 2012, almost a year after the eviction of the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) encampment at Zuccotti Park, Hurricane Sandy hit New York, with first landfall near Brigantine, New Jersey, with winds of 80 mph. At the time, Sandy was the second costliest storm in US history, costing around US $73.5 billion, second only to Hurricane Katrina. The human cost was significant: more than 600,000 homes were lost or damaged across New York City and New Jersey, and the storm was directly or indirectly responsible for at least 159 deaths.1 In the context of this disaster, a new social movement emerged called Occupy Sandy (OS), which mobilised the latent skills, networks and activists of OWS into an effective relief effort, with volunteers distributing food and blankets, repairing commu-nications, removing and remediating mould, and restoring properties. The movement was widely recognised as providing more effective relief than the official effort.2 Even within mainstream paradigms, OS has been interpreted as ‘outperforming’ established relief organisations including the USA Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and non-gov-ernmental organisations (NGOs) such as the Red Cross.3 There was widespread public anger with these two agencies in particular for their failures.4 Indeed, official estimates are that OS recruited around 60,000 volunteers, at least four times more than those deployed by the American Red Cross.5 The group also mobilised supporters to donate funds, raising more than US $1.36 million in cash,6 and rallied people from all around the world to donate goods such as blankets, torches, hygiene products and tools using the gift registry system on Amazon.com, a facility usually used for wedding lists.