Any thoughts on the Pods Emergency Shelter?

[Catherine Vincent]

http://www.myfoxtampabay.com/myfox/photo_servlet?contentId=3763011&version=1&locale=EN-US&subtype=MIMG&siteId=1018&isP16=true


PODS: Portable on-demand shelter?

CLEARWATER - A realtor may call it quaint. You may call it cramped.
Emergency managers see it as a housing solution following a hurricane.
PODS, a Pinellas County-based storage company, is showing off its new
128-square-foot portable post-disaster shelter that sleeps as many as
six people.

Each unit contains the essentials for survival after a storm: Beds,
a toilet, a shower, a sink, a cooktop, a microwave oven, and a kitchen
table. There's even room for a small flip-down television and an
air conditioner. The size is smaller than a one-car garage, but
slightly smaller than a cruse ship cabin. It is eight feet tall,
eight feet wide, and 16 feet long.

For nearly 10 years, PODS had delivered storage units to driveways, where
homeowners load them themselves. That continued after storms and other
natural disasters. "People were trying to live in our PODS," following
hurricanes, said PODS vice president Tony Paalz. "This is the solution
for any disaster or catastrophic event."

Local governments will get the sales pitch, said Paalz. An unveiling
ceremony is scheduled for July 25.

(see picture and video at link)
http://www.myfoxtampabay.com/myfox/pages/News/Detail?contentId=3762853&version=1&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=TSTY&pageId=3.2.1

[CottonBear]

1. Good idea. Would work great for homeless and poor people not just disaster victims.

There are companies that convert shipping containers (the kind you see on ships, trains and tractor trailers) intpo permnanent shelters.

Solar panels for power and a rain water collection, filtration and storage system would be perfect for the POD homes.

[Ian David]

4. William Gibson envisioned them hanging from the bottoms of bridges. n/t

[The Straight Story]

2. Pretty interesting, gonna read up on it more

Thanks for the post and link!

[Uben]

3. A couple of questions

How many of these units could be stored at say an airport in Arkansas? And, how long could they sit there unused before some nice republican businessman bought them for pennies on the dollar?

Catch my drift?

[Catherine Vincent]

5. It looks like they are looking to sell them $10-12K

But imo, you should be able to rent or buy them.

[Uben]

7. Oh, I'm sure they will sell

FEMA will probably buy 1000's. My point was, if they go unused like the trailer houses in Arkansas, what's the use?

I live in Gainesville, Texas. You may have seen us on national news back on June 18th when we endured the worst flood in recorded history for the town. FEMA and the Red Cross set up shelters for those displaced by the floods. There was actually an abundance of space and supplies. I tried to donate food, but they said they already had more than they would ever use.

These PODS units would have provided more privacy for the folks who were relegated to living in civic centers or churches until they could procure better housing. Good idea, but our government would be the ones buying the units, and we have seen how they handle large disasters! On the other hand, the response to the Gainesville flood was more than adequate. So, I'm all for something to help disaster victims. Losing everything you own is devastating to those who have little resources to replace their losses.

Hey, throw some barbed wire around them and you have portable prisons. Just put a lock on the door! he he!

[Donnachaidh]

6. That's more than a drift, I'd say

My question is this --

Has PODS been doing so badly it has leftover stock it needs to get rid of? And I'd like to know how LONG someone is expected to live in these metal refrigerator boxes?

There seems to be quite a few Katrina people still living in trailers, isn't there? Dunno about anyone else, but do you really want to stuff disaster victims into what is essentially a DOWNGRADE from the trailers, in terms of size? For an indeterminate time?

[blogslut]

8. Anyone seen these?

http://hexayurt.com/

$200-$500 to make! Awesome!

[The Straight Story]

9. My wife and I have talked about Yurts for years

We were just discussing them a few weeks ago actually.

A kick for yurts!

[blogslut]

10. Yurts rule

These Hexayurt folks are making the design free to anyone. They call it open source architecture. Gotta love it.

[hexayurt]

12. Mesg. from the hexayurt project

Hello, we saw traffic coming into the site from your discussions here so I thought I'd come over and give you some additional information.

Firstly, there is a plan for using Hexayurts to enable people to evacuate and resettle themselves in natural disasters like Katerina or the potential Bay Quake / Big One, or even some forms of attack. The plan is interesting in that it has a good deal of respect from the American Red Cross, and doesn't actually require very much government activity to implement - it's a matter of some agreements with building supply stores like Home Depot and some computer systems which are less complex than most of the apps created by Google or Yahoo type companies.

http://www.appropedia.org/Hexayurt_Mass_Evacuation - The plan is online here. If you're interested in helping to realize this, [e-mail]

You can also find out much more about the project here:

http://www.archive.org/checkin/RAW_FOOTAGE_Hexayurt_Vinay_Gupta_Robert_Vrtis_Combined_Endeavor - Interviews from Germany on the Hexayurt Project with Vinay Gupta (designer) and Robert Vrtis (Office of the Secretary of Defense.)

I think you'll find it very interesting. You might be very surprised to see how supportive the military have been of the Hexayurt project. There are a lot of folks in the military who are getting very serious about humanitarian issues, although (as with all things military) it seems to take forever for new approaches and new attitudes to become established practice in the field. But it all starts with new ideas, and they've been very quick off the mark to learn about our work and to participate in the open source design project.

A little *good* news :)

[annabanana]

13. lol - Welcome to DU. I hope you stick around

and get to know us.

[hexayurt]

15. hahhaha

Hey, I'm basically a Gandhian. Practicing Hindu, pretty devoted to humanitarian and environmental causes. That's what I do with my life.

Nobody was more surprised than I was to find strong military interest in new models for humanitarian relief, particularly given the general shape of the world right now.

But I have to tell you, it's there. Some of the smartest people I ever met on humanitarian issues are US armed forces.

Now, has general policy and practice caught up with the those folks? No, not yet. But it's important to realize that in an organization that large, you can have an enormous diversity of capabilities and viewpoints, and that, at the end of the day, they don't make policy. The government tells them what to do, and they do it, and that's their job. Lousy policy starts at the political level most of the time.

That is, I'm sure, not news to folks around here :-)

Part of the joy of free/libre and open source projects is that anybody can come to the table to help. Best video footage I have of how to assemble a hexayurt was filmed at US-sponsored exercise in Germany, and the footage that was shot there is public domain - everybody benefits from that kind of working together.

I don't have to approve of all of their values. They certainly don't have to approve of all of mind. But we can find areas of common cause, places where we can work together to make the world a better place, with people of all political perspectives and all walks of life.

Roughly 10 million people a year die from dirty drinking water or cooking over open fires and breathing smoke all the time. There are some really good solutions to both of those problems - a variety of ultracheap water purification technologies like SODIS, and all kinds of smart cooking stoves, some of which only cost $5.

Even very poor people can afford these kinds of systems.

But we don't have really good free designs for these things - not with exhaustive scientific analysis and testing, rigorous case studies and backing and credentialing of major scientific institutions.

One of the groups that has the muscle to think about doing that kind of work is the US Government, and DOD Directive 3000.05 actually creates something of a mandate to think about that kind of positive change as part of the mandate of the Pentagon.

Groups like Africa Command, which is in the early planning stages, are likely to wind up with huge humanitarian responsibilities, particularly in areas like Darfur, or in the unstable nations in the center of Africa. If Africa Command had existed 10 or 20 years ago, there's a good chance that the near-genocide in Rwanda would never have happened.

I'm willing to work with anybody who's interested in helping to save some lives.

I'm really serious about this. The smartest and most perceptive thinking on humanitarian issues I've ever seen is coming out of a US military context. There's a real capability there which, in future years, with more humane leadership at the political level, could develop into a real global resource to help in disasters, and maybe even to help put a dent in the death toll and suffering from global poverty.

But the direction the military evolves in is set at the political level, by the government. A US government that took poverty seriously would be a boon to all mankind, but so far, neither Democrat nor Republican has taken the scale of human misery in the developing world seriously.

Look at aid budgets over the past three decades, since the end of the Cold War. Do you see any really significant efforts to help the poor?

Poverty is not a partisan issue: neither side gives a damn. And it's not about aid, either, it's about **actually caring** and doing things like rationalizing farm subsidies, removing unfair trade barriers, helping technologies that could save lives transfer... the whole deal.

Neither party is humanitarian. This is not a partisan issue. Both suck on this stuff. Perhaps we'll see that change in 08. I'd certainly like to believe so.

Vinay

[Catherine Vincent]

11. No, I haven't.

Thanks!

[yurbud]

14. this is what they need: shelter before and DURING storm

It's just missing windows.





http://www.usbunkers.com/general.php