Disaster Recovery- Effective Associating

I keep expecting to hear music with this.

What tune,AH?

Milo

How can you possibly expect this to work, if it's not administered by FEMA?

Kramarat;

You need to go and review the thread we started after the Haiti disaster:- Shipping Container Housing this thread was kept going for months and is still followed.

Some of the ideas have been presented to the UN and FEMA who have been very quite about the use of such structures for emergrncy use (if temporary), maybe the attitude of "not invented here" Just look at a number of facilities which have been actually built in and around the NY city area, NJ and near Hartford CT plus project still waiting approval in MA. Plus else where in the EU and other countries, makes sense, containers are made of Coten steel and last a life time (Bob Vila has videos on homes they built in Florida after a Hurricane hit Fort Meyers area.

Within 4 miles of NY in Port Elizabeth there are more than 300,000 + empty Chinese built containers just waiting to be utilized. Several CR4 engineers are in discussion with the City authorites in and around NY/NJ to get them in and converteed as temporary living till their real homes can be re-established or repaired.

Think outside the box and consider this better than the FEMA Formaldyhe containated trailers rotting in the Southern US after Katrina- just look around what we did on the Haiti Shipping Container thread.

Just forget FEMA let the CR4 site get the message to them; remeber the constitution starts, "We the People" so FEMA and HLS work for "US" not themselves.

You wrote, "Think outside the box..."

Wouldn't that be a deck? :)

Anonymous,

Wouldn't that be a deck? :)

Your comment makes no sense if you are an engineer!

Engineering has basic tenants we all learn in School/College/University which gives you tools to think/analize further once you have graduated and are in work . So "thinking outside the Box" means using everything you learn and try to see if your ideas/thoughts can be tackled in any other way.

So many people will not or do not stray from there conform zones. Why, because they/we do not want to seem to be asking stupid or different types of questions, thus a stalling on innovation/ideas/creativity has occurred.

Let me quote one of my old mentors Sir Barnes Wallis (the designer/inventor of the bouncing bomb, Concord, TSR2 and many other Aerospace concepts); he would always address the 1st apprentices by saying, "Gentleman; if you can think of an idea for something do not give up. As there is no such word as CAN'T, as it is made up of CAN do but maybe NOT at the present time, so never give up as it can be done in the future as technology will evolve to allow you to succeed".

This is what many have forgotten or never heard in their everyday work.

I know first hand four years ago in the Gulf, we built something which was in a small scale model and it functioned; except the BIG OIL boys dismissed it as impractical! (reason was as Matt Simmons the Oil expert pointed out, it would have exposed the total oil gallonage gushing from the well head and the BP fine would have been $3,420.00 per barrel x 500,000 + barrels; so do the math)

What is going on up and down the Eastern seaboard coastal areas will not be fixed in 5 minutes by :- lets do a study or we need to look at this in detail and pass it through various agencies = weeks of lost time and winter plus another Nor'Easter is due late this week. They do not want RESPONSIBILITY for making a decision without a "CYA" in place.

So lets be constructive and put forard as many idea/concepts we can. Some may be way out here but can be refined or yes we did that and it worked years ago-lets do it.

Yesterday a group of us here in NH got hold of 6 small generators (2,400 watts to 8,800 watts-one could run on gas and also NG) and donated them to South NJ Disaster Volunteers Org to distribute as they see fit.

I have reached out to the original CR4 group in the Shipping Container Housng thread to continue.

It was a joke.

If you need further clarification I can expand on that.

I get the point of your post and agree with you.

Anonymous,

Do not Joke on the CR4 site.

If you have a point which is valid then clarify it, people depend on people being honest with their comments; not frivolous remarks.

We had this occasionaly on the Haiti shipping container thread and the administrator gave several warnings. We now have two people BANNED, do not let this occur here to this thread.

Lighten up Geoph. Believe me. You, AH, me, and many others are on the same page here.

Back to the subject of the blog....................

I think it would be a great idea if people that lived in neighborhoods actually got to know each other, and put together disaster plans that are similar to what Miles has laid out here. It would save a tremendous amount of grief and heartache.

Geoff.

Sorry, but a sense of humor is essential for human life. If you can't learn to laugh (and at one's self from time to time, too) you are doomed to a miserable life.

The clarification for humor on my initial post is the following sign...

:)

It is universal for "smile" and should be a hint.

No one gets banned for humor on any thread. Personal attacks or other anti-social behavior - yes, but not humor.

Allot of the housing for our troops in Iraq are made from shipping containers.

Phoenix911,

Correct and they are custom built by several companies in the South. Are nicely fitted out and some even have ballistic armour on the exterior and a Kevlar sprayed with the Truck-liner protective plastic coating (they spray it onto interior brick walled buildings and it stops the wall splintering if a bomb goes off- there are Youtube videos)

Very simple to convert and make either a temporary home or a permanent one (see Bob Vila's Youtube videos of the homes he erected in Fort Meyers Florida put two parallel and a steel studded roof inbetween with Hurricane tie downs to the container structures- built in less than two weeks from scratch- they sprayed the exterior with a heat/insulating coating to hid the ribbing exterior)

Again there are more than 6.25 million empty Chinese containers up and down the Eastern seaboard available. The state of NJ has been appraised and are considering.

They are also considering using them as shoreline barriers sunk two high into the shoreline sands and covered over after being filled up (allow for the biggest storm surges expected in the future when burying-still place rocks and sand over anyway).

The NJ shore from Cape May to Sandy Hook is 123 miles long and would take approx 264 x 40 ft. containers per mile lined up two high so they need for the sea defenses just 32,472 containers + another1000 for ramps, piers/groins or harbor/inlet entrances.

Still leaves tens of thousands for other uses along the coast and for shelter building.

The state of NJ has been appraised and are considering.

I guess this was never in their contingency plans when disater strikes. Maybe next time.

But with the rising sea levels something has to be done. particularly around Norfolk, which has pretty much been spared.

Phoenix911,

Actually a good friend who lives in Point Pleasant has put this to the State as they have a huge breech in the shoreline about 450 ft. wide and they are trying to refill with pushed sand- behind this is around 4,500+ acres of housing. Bob has estimated they would only require 120 x 40 ft. units stacked two high to fully protect the area

They currently are using 5 x turbine pumps (rated at 52,000 gpm) plus dozens of 1,000 to 4,500 gpm construction pumps going through the town and back into the sea to empty the lake that has formed-been running since last Tuesday non-stop and are making head way-only if the sand barrier remains when the Nor-Easter hits late Thursday.

Agree the whole coast line of the US needs looking at and not just by USACE (they cannot design anything off the cuff without years of study- look at the canal walls which collapsed in NOL, were sunk 4 feet to short for the max load applied if the canal was full: force x surface area!

If the Italians can surround Venice with a 210 Km barrierand has special lowerable shipping barriers to allow regular shipping to pass (30 meeters deep water plus the 10 meter height-all haydraulic) which can and will take a 10 meter storm surge along with the Dutch and there Dyke systems- love to drive along them from the North to the Belgian border in the South and they get 15 Meter surges all the time and will only get more frequent (they can take 20 meter surges but have erectable barriers ready/designed for the future to allow 35 meter surges)

USACE and the FEMA/USCG have still the "not invented hear mentality".

I was listening to NPR this morning, where they were talking about the rising sea level at Norfolk and the breaker thats currently there. And allot of the rise of sea water is from the change in currents, so it's not level all over, but only at certain spots.

An example they gave was stirring your cup of coffee, where the level is higher on the outer edge of the cup, then in the middle of the cup.

As far as Venice, the things they are doing there is also affecting the replenishment of fresh sea water. e.i. there is not changeover to fresh sea water..........I guess that is the price of compromise one has to pay

Geoff. I remember that thread. My post was completely tongue in cheek.

There are many options out there. I built one of these in my back yard. Lightweight, compact and stackable panels for easy transport, cheap, and strong when assembled. A couple of buckets of nuts and bolts is all that is needed to put them together. I commend the work of these companies, in putting together a sensible plan that bypasses the government bureaucracies. It will keep them up, running, and prepared. People in NC are still living in those gray FEMA trailers. The big storm was in 96.

Kramarat,

You are right on, except the Agency Beaucrats are now wanting documents/permits/drawings etc before saying YES. Such BS.

Same as we meet in Haiti with the UN, USAID and greedy politicians.

FEMA has not looked since mid 90's at any newer emergency shelter systems except Trailer type- which have proven to be toxic from the use of Formaldehyde insulation on the interiors (made thousands sick) and cost them for the Katrina Hurricane in excess of $203 million and thousands had to be abandoned or destroyed.

Shipping Containers exist up and down the Eastern Sea board by the tens of thousands (actually between Jacksonville Fl and Boston MA there are approximately 6.25 million). Would also act as good beach storm barriers if sunk into the sands-stacked in place-two high (they have corner locks and can be weld together as well- made of Corten Steel so quite corossion resistant, even to salt water which they are exposed to on a ship)

The quonset hut system is also good and quite storm resistant due to there shape and can be erected by a small team of 5 people and a pick-up truck for winching stuff into place using a lifting Triangle-hinge- A no brainer.

So keep up exploring ideas/comcepts.