Video Better Disaster Shelters than FEMA Trailers (Video) 79
Reaction Housing is not the only attempt to make post-disaster housing better, or at least less expensive, than the infamous FEMA trailers. A charity called ShelterBox in Lakewood Ranch, FL, fills boxes with everything a family or group of up to 10 people needs, including a heavy-duty tent, bedding, and kitchen supplies, in order to survive after a natural disaster. (Here's an interview video I shot in 2010 about ShelterBox.) Exo, ShelterBox or any one of dozens of other emergency housing alternatives are good to have around, ready to go, for the next Katrina, Sandy or Tsunami. High tech? Not necessarily, but technology has obviously made emergency housing faster and easier to erect than the "earthquake shacks" that were built in San Francisco to house people made homeless by the 1906 earthquake.
Timothy Lord for Slashdot: Ian, we’re standing here at South by Southwest in front of an interesting structure call the exo, can you explain this little bit?
Ian: Alright, so the exo is our rapid deploy emergency housing structure for people displaced during natural disasters. So what it is? It actually comes in two parts. So, there is a base and then the shell, and so what we can do for transportation is the shelf is actually stacked together like this, just kind of like coffee cups. So 16 of these can fit on to a standard flatbed trailer without any wide-load or special permits, and we can truck them out to an area that’s been affected by natural disasters and provide housing to people.
Slashdot: Contrast that with other forms of emergency housing?
Ian: So other forms of emergency housing such as catastrophes with FEMA trailers obviously did not work; unbelievably expensive, most of them never even got there. It’s just an incredible waste. Other kinds of structures – if you want to do tents or something like that, not really scalable, not very durable, people can live in these for an extended period of time actually, and they tend to ride much faster than any kind of FEMA trailer would ever get to you.
Slashdot: Let's talk aboutliving inside of it, the structure itself has got some hi-tech touches, so we’ve got an illuminated LED sign up here, and you've got a further reinforced shell.
Ian: So, it’s actually a proprietary composite of fiber glass and a plastic honeycomb inside, and so it makes it super light, very rigid and similar to an airplane shell maybe and so the whole shell actually weighs about 400 pounds, so four people can easily pick it up and lift it, the base weighs about 300 pounds, so this can all be set up by teams of four people in under 10 minutes.
Slashdot: I talked with one of your engineers yesterday, who mentioned he came out of the aerospace industry.
Ian: Yeah, exactly yeah, John who had worked for Boeing for 10 years, and he is a huge part of how we’re able to make this so light and efficient.
Slashdot: Can you talk about the components inside little bit?
Ian: So inside we’ve got fully light up with electricity, LED lighting, and onboard computer and antenna that communicates with our cloud software. So we can monitor internal temperatures, door sensors mobily via our own base camp software. And we have beds here, this is our disaster unit, so it’s four beds and very simple and basic, they’d actually fold up into the walls, so that they are able to stack together, it’s a total modular construction, so it can be loaded out with essentially anything that you want to put inside if you want fancier stuff, bigger beds, mattresses, AC units installed in the back, we can essentially put anything inside that we want.
Slashdot: Excellent.
Ian: Exactly.
Slashdot: Can you talk about the portability a little bit. I know there are some points for lifting.
Ian: Yeah, exactly so you can see on the side here, we have these little D-rings here. So, we have our own special straps that hook into here, and you can easily pick it up, and just lift just like this, and we can walk around with it.
Slashdot: How many people does it take to walk around?
Ian: It takes four.
Slashdot: One on each corner.
Ian: That’s all you need, yeah, four. We have men, women and children, just four of them.
Slashdot: Talk about where you are in the arc between somebody’s idea and actually being deployed?
Ian: Yeah, so we actually just received our Series A funding and we’re given $10 million to go ahead and start building up our new facility and we’re going into mass production right now. So that’s kind of the transition phase we’re into from the prototype of the Mark 5s to actually building up our new facility right here in South Austinand we’re going ahead into mass producing the Mark 6.
Slashdot: What sort of things can we expect from the Mark 6 brand?
Ian: So, we’re actually not advertising a lot about the Mark 6 at the moment. We’re really only talking about the Mark 5.
Slashdot: When you do field test for your upcoming trials here, what sort of test are you going to be doing?
Ian: We’re going to be doing all kinds of testing. So, we’re not advertising a lot about that at the moment. But essentially you know every sort of stress and strain that we can put these under and field test this, is going to give us a huge amount of information back on what we need to do, what we need to fix and build up better, it will give us an enormous amount of insight into how we can make these better and more efficient, easier to manufacture, all of that is going to be a huge part of our field trials.
Slashdot: Not everyone is going to be in the market. So how much will these end up costing?
Ian: So, they cost anywhere between $6,000 and $12,000 depending upon what you want to load them out with inside. So this is our disaster unit, very basic. Just electricity, lighting, four beds, and our commercial customers want more bells and whistles inside, so bigger beds, mattresses, AC units installed in the back, vinyl wallpaper to make it look pretty and stuff like that, closer to $12,000.
Slashdot: Is it conceivable that individuals who want to buy it will be able to?
Ian: Yeah, that’s very conceivable. We’re not at that point yet, because we’re ramping up towards mass production at the moment. So at the moment you wouldn’t be able to call us up and just order one for yourself. But that’s definitely in the works.
Yet another makes the same mistake. (Score:5, Insightful)
Meanwhile, personal responsibility in preparation for potential future emergencies is countermanded. An alternative to homeless camps is prevented. Applications beyond emergency housing are completely nullified. And the company cuts itself out of profits. This seems to be what always happens with emergency shelter. Either it's priced such that one could buy something in the range from an old mobile home to small house, or it's simply not available.
What is the difference between selling a 25-40 unit lot and taking 25-40 consumer orders before beginning production? This company could give itself six months per order for enough orders to be reached to justify production and then give the consumer an option for a refund. It wouldn't even be necessary if they priced it reasonably such that better solutions aren't also more cost-effective.
The engineer saw Katrina victims and wanted to solve the problem. Bullshit. The Katrina victims wouldn't have had access to this, by design.
Re: (Score:2)
What problem does this solve for Katrina Victims? Why would I want to live in this [squarespace.com] when I could live in a fema trailer instead [examiner.com]?
Re:Yet another makes the same mistake. (Score:5, Insightful)
All this does is provide emergency shade/shelter from rain. It completely fails to provide: 1) potable water containment, 2) grey/black water containment, 3) cooking facilities, 4) sanitary facilities, 5) perishable goods storage, 6) personal goods storage, 7) any form of even temporary privacy, 8) any form of air conditioning or even ventilation, 9) any form of power for receiving news , maintaining contact, or even doing useful work outside daylight hours.
This would scale less well than tents, for equivalent protection/amenities, and in no way be a long term housing solution for families waiting for an area to rebuild, as many of the FEMA trailers turned into.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:1)
Or you could get off your overpaid programmer butt and equip yourself a decent backpack, boots and enough gear to live in the wilderness for a day or two. Frame pack, boots, a tent, hatchet, stove, pot, water filter, rifle, ammo, dried beans and weather gear. What % of the population owning a decent gravity feed water filter would stop cholera in an urban disaster?
WTF am I saying. I'm going to get more people killed than giving by giving out my ammonia and bleach cleaning fluid recipe again. (The people tel
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
A sleeper bus [africa-trade.ci] can do that job much better job of that than this glorified tent could.
Re: (Score:2)
they're comfortable enough otherwise that people may not make enough effort to move on from them
Indeed. That's pretty hard to argue with. Many people will tolerate almost any indignity they don't have to work for.
Sometimes I wonder if that contributed to any actual designs at FEMA to make the trailers somewhat shoddy. Use trailers that would be fine for shorter-term occupancy, but simply don't hold-up to long-term habitation. That doesn't explain the formaldehyde directly, but it does explain the use of really low-end materials, materials so cheap that the processes involving formaldehyde were not done correctly in order to keep the costs down.
Maybe Lumber Liquidators will get into the travel trailer business..
Re: (Score:3)
I like the shelter but the price point kills it. That's way too much money for a fiberglass shelll with fold out bunks. If it were about 2 or 3 grand I could see it selling as a hunting or fishing cabin like crazy. Especially with some sort of solar power option. 6 grand is outrageous although it's not as big a rip-off as the damn FEMA trailers.
Re: (Score:1)
My guess it's the bridge between disaster and temporary housing like the FEMA trailer. They're portable sleeping pods with bonus climate control and power hookups. They provide privacy and a place to sleep relatively comfortably and store personal belongings. They can be quickly deployed so that in the advent that standard disaster shelters are inundated, people are not left to fend for themselves. You are meant to survive in them, not live in them. These hard-shell tents must be supplemented with addi
Re: (Score:3)
Hell, the best shelter-in-place unit is probably the minivan. Small enough that it can be parked just about anywhere that the terrain isn't too rough, generally decent fuel economy so moving it around doesn't take much precious gasoline if
Re: (Score:2)
This perfectly answers the question of where to get emergency housing in a place easily accessible by trucks for people who have wifi to
entertain themselves and are in areas secure enough that going to the external toilet is not dangerous.
Re: (Score:1)
I'm very sure this guy is trying to make things better when the next disaster strikes, especially his own bank account balance.
Then do better (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
They are cutting themselves out of market reach by excluding consumers.
This portapotty-like shelter seems to have been optimized for government use. As far I can tell, it will tip over in extreme winds and it will suffocate its occupants in extreme heat. The last thing they want is the extremely bad reviews that might come from actual consumer adoption/experimentation before the government/Halliburton money comes in.
Re: (Score:2)
They are cutting themselves out of market reach by excluding consumers. Their success or failure depends entirely upon whether organizations, wealthy individuals, or municipalities will order large lots. People with deep pockets don't spend on impulse, and they're just as likely to create their own solution as invest in this one.
I don't know whether these guys are cutting themselves off from the market. But I do know that the deepest pockets, the Feds do buy on impulse. There's vast sums of money available for disaster recovery and piddling amounts available for disaster preparation (aside from terrorism, which does seem to consume an inordinate amount of disaster preparedness money). If these guys can store a large number of these units and ship them for a large scale disaster, then they could get a piece of that action, which mig
Re: (Score:2)
In terms of weather hitting hard - frequently. In terms of a clusterfuck of insane choices as the disaster approached - no so often. Florida etc gets hammered but they are used to it, they prepare for it, and that's a potential market for disaster preparation gear.
The sort of people that say no to the offer of extra trains to help with evacuation are not going to buy this stuff. The s
Untill the next katrina (Score:2)
Cost (Score:3)
Re: Cost (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
No, FEMA trailers aren't trash afterwards. They were sold off by the hundreds. They were hastily constructed so those that bought them and didn't bother to seal up the usual leak spots (this is normal for any stick built RV... ...you always have to maintain possible leak spots) they're trashed.
Maintained correctly, and with some minor repair where the speedbuilding wasn't right, they should last 15 to 20 years without excessive work.
Re: Cost (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
From the looks of it, a FEMA trailer looks like a low-cost RV trailer, cheap but has a minimal living space (bedroom, kitchen, etc). This Exo Shelter is nothing but a rigid tent with four beds.
And the Exo has LED lighting and an external LED display for identification but doesn't seem to have solar panels built-in which seems like an obvious flaw to me.
Re: (Score:3)
It's a $6000-12000 tent that sleeps four and needs to be towed by a truck. For that cost, you could fill a similar sized trailer up with (non-rigid) tents and sleep hundreds of people.
Re: (Score:3)
These nest inside each other, so you can lay about ten or so on a flatbed trailer. I think you could get two FEMA trailers on top of a flatbed trailer.
Cost? Well, a FEMA trailer needs to be constructed to highway transportation standards. Do you think that's cheaper than building something to "more durable than a tent" standard (exo shelter)?
Re: (Score:3)
Sixteen units per trailer, at around 34 seconds into the video.
Re: (Score:1)
These nest inside each other, so you can lay about ten or so on a flatbed trailer. I think you could get two FEMA trailers on top of a flatbed trailer.
If the FEMA trailer had the living space of a Exo, you could easily fit 4 on a flat bed.
Lucking the people behind the FEMA trailer realize people like things like kitchens, bathrooms and beds that are actually comfortable.
Those Katrina trailers cost $19,000 (Score:2)
Per this article, they also cost $19,000 in 2005 dollars [usatoday.com]. Much more than the $4000 you're estimating.
These exo shelters are a more immediate shelter solution. Deployable within hours of an emergency e
Re: (Score:1)
Re:Cost (Score:4)
It's very high tech! (Score:2)
"Yeah great. How does it work when there's no reliable power source?"
"Uhhhhh....well"
What am I missing (Score:2)
Am I missing something? This looks like a high-tech tent with no cooking, cleaning, or living space.
Re:What am I missing (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, but the door locks will interface directly with your smart watch!
Re: (Score:2)
Cleaning is automated. The technology is called "autowash" and currently available for beds and showers.
Hi, my name is Ian... (Score:1)
Yes, of course your name is Ian. Somehow I knew that the moment I saw you.
What a fucking douche. Somehow projects such as this attract his type. I guess they're just looking for something to do, see a simple solution to a difficult problem like FEMA trailers and think "I can improve on that!" So they spend years on the project, not doing anything useful like learning about the problems they need to solve, but just making something, anything, as long as it seems cool to them. Then they end up with a fan
Good idea but not very useful (Score:1)
hexayurt (Score:3)
http://hexayurt.com/ [hexayurt.com]
it's a free (libre) design, i'm surprised it wasn't mentioned in the original post. the modular design (it's hexagons) allows for yes, things like solar-panel hexagons, WIFI-pre-installed hexagons, lighting-pre-installed hexagons and so on.
Price is ridiculous (Score:1)
I just bought a basic small travel trailer. Sleeps 3, but with a small redesign, could sleep 4. 2 can even sleep on a real spring mattress. Includes a private toilet and a sink (no hot water). Dinette for 4. Water tank, grey tank, black tank, water pump. Battery. Power. Excellent ventilation (4 windows, two roof vents, one fan). No shower. No A/C (+$1000 dealer option, going to hack one in myself for $100). Only slightly larger than the EXO (14 foot long).
Total price I paid? $5,995 CDN ($4796 US
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Got a link to your trailer model?
I lived in a FEMA trailer and it wasn't that bad (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
I've lived in wall tents for months at a time. And those were the days of kerosene lamps and pit latrines. No LED lights, no Wifi. The Rest of the World uses tents for emergency shelters for months at a time as well. Don't see why this hard shell system has any advantages. You can insulate tents. You can strike them down before a wind storm comes so they don't blow away. You can move them easily when you figure out that your original plan has everybody in a flood plain. They are infinitely flexible.
Is it just me (Score:2)
Addresses something other than the real problem (Score:1)
The content-free web site. (Score:4, Insightful)
I open the Exo web page. I see all the pretty pictures.
What I don't see is what I need to know about heating, cooling and ventilation.
The lack of storage for personal belongings, food and water, the space and facilities needed for cooking and sanitation. Not the slightest thought has been given to the comfort, pride or privacy of the refugee.
That idiotic door lock bothers me no end.
These geeks may know tech, but they are utterly blind to the psychological and social forces in play when people are under extreme stress.
These stackable plastic cups seem more appropriately designed for Joe Arpaio's Tent City [wikipedia.org] prison camps.
Steamed people (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I'd far rather camp in a Shelterbox tent than in a plastic sweatbox since I, too, live in FL. I have a week's worth of food, water, and cooking fuel stockpiled in case of a hurricane, and I can charge our laptops and smartphones from our cars.
If our house trailer blows away, so it goes. We have a tent, and while my wife whines a little about camping, she's basically okay with it and has the necessary skills to 'live rough' comfortably. A FEMA trailer would be fine with us. We happily live in a 1 bedroom tra
$6K-$12K? (Score:3)
$6,000 to $12,000 for a rigid one room 4 bed tent with no facilities? Are they insane, you can get a full fledged multi room camper with a bathroom, kitchen, running water and just as many beds for $15,000. There is definitely a use for this kind of emergency shelter but not at that price point. Heck you can buy some of those multi-room camping tents for $300 each. A quick redesign to make it easier to set up and the addition of some kind of living module (bathroom, shower, kitchen) and you could have something far better than this and probably wouldn't cost more than $2,000
Re: (Score:1)
It's a tax payer grab. Just get a government contract and bam! Instant millionaire!!!
Only 400 pounds (Score:1)
$12,000 with air conditioner? (Score:2)
12 grand with the air conditinoer and some unspecified options that don't prevent it from being stacked up like coffee cups?
For only a couple grand more I purchased, new, an 19 foot travel trailer, with kitchen, (propane stove, micrwave, propane/electric refrigerator) beds for five (if one is a kid) and two are friendlly - six if two are infants), which double as a daytime couch and bedding storage cabinet, TV antenna and prewire, air conditioner, bathroom with enclosed shower, closet, white grey and black