Emergency housing

[Spencer W Hunter]

On Tue, 11 Oct 2005, J & D Goldman wrote:

> So the climatologists are telling us we've had 50 years of unusally good
> global weather and that things are really going back to "normal". Their
> point is, don't expect the frequency of storms and earthquakes to let
> up, we had our rest from them, and now its over.
>
> So, along with that, the need for emergency housing has never been
> greater. FEMA buys how many millions of dollars worth of trailers?
> Certainly an advantage having built-in utilities in a ready to live-in
> format, but in some cases, people would be happy to just get under
> cover.  I think those people in Pakistan, in the cold rain, would be
> delighted to have one.

The trailer decision should be the last straw for the incompetency of
FEMA.  RVs have very limited utilities on their own and need to be hooked
up to external water and electricity, and those chemical toilets will be
needing attention.  Meanwhile, a viable solution was staring them in the
face the entire time.

> One wonders what it will take to get domes to a point where they are
> available and actually used.  I just placed an order for some samples
> of plastic greenhouse pots made from PLA, essentially corn starch, and
> have been visiting with some others about soybean resins used for
> insulation and foamboard perfectly suitable for structures. When you
> look at what is being done with honeycomb panels now, I think I can
> see how this could really come together.

*knock on wood!*

> I know some people are working on at least some emergency housing demo
> projects to give domes  enough exposure to start the ball rolling.
> Anybody see anything happening in domes for emergency housing?  No
> lack of need....
>
>  Dan G.

Check out the cover news story at http://www.bfi.org/ .  The Buckminster
Fuller Intstitute Emergency Shelter Special Projects Committee is working
with World Shelters ( http://www.worldshelters.org/ , partly run by the
folks who brought us North Face tents) to develop the kind of truly
autonomous dwellings the victims of these disasters are literally begging
for.  So, there is some hope.

Spencer Hunter, Tucson, AZ
gopher://www.u.arizona.edu:80/hGET%20/%7Eshunter