My interest in natural building spans the full range of construction from simple emergency shelters for disaster victims all the way up to gorgeous homes. Today I thought I’d blog about something a little different. Imagine yourself stranded in the wilderness in an emergency situation. Your knowledge of knots, lashings and pole building could help keep you dry, warm and comfortable or even save your life. Even basic knowledge of these things could prove invaluable someday. You don’t need to be an expert woodsman or survivalist. In this scenario we’re talking about temporary shelter for a few days.
Emergency Shelter
Rolling Shelter: Vehicles We Have Called Home
We have just published a book about my and my wife Zana’s experiences, over four decades, of living in a variety of vehicular based homes. In fact when we first met I was living in a school bus I had converted to a quaint home that was parked near the mouth of the Russian River on the Pacific Coast. It was a romantic time holding many fond memories.
Rolling Shelter: Vehicles We Have Called Home is the first of a series of several books about all of the building that I have done over these many years. The others will be about remodeling existing homes and about earthbag building. The general theme of all of these books is how to provide shelter in an ecological and economical way, and I am using my own experience as an example for this.
Half Earth Shelter
“This is part 1 of an instructional video of how to build a Half Earth Shelter. This video is brough to you by Ways Of The Wild Institute and White Wolf.”
Emergency Earthbag Shelter Now Under Construction
The earthbag emergency shelter Patti Stouter and I published in our UN Emergency Shelter Proposal is now under construction. This is something I’ve wanted to do for years. Drawings, articles and blog posts are all great, but there’s nothing like first-hand experience to work out the kinks and get detailed documentation. A European journal plans to publish this shelter design next month along with Kelly Hart’s Riceland Dome. The journal article will likely bring much more international attention to earthbag building, and this lit a fire under me to build an actual prototype.
$229,000 FEMA Trailers
Comments from yesterday’s blog post prompted me to look up the cost of FEMA trailers for Hurricane Katrina victims. We all know the government buys $600 toilet seats, but this report about FEMA trailers really shocked and disgusted me.
“A new report by government watchdogs obtained by NBC News estimates expenses for each FEMA trailer at the Port Bienville site could reach a staggering $229,000.
“I could have bought a brand-new trailer! Or a house even!” Guidroz says.
Straw Bale Emergency Shelter Cold Weather Upgrades
Suggestions from one of our readers on how to make the straw bale emergency shelter more comfortable in cold climates. This amazing shelter can be built in just a few hours.
“I just found your website as I am on a quest to ‘put a roof over my head’ as cheaply as possible. I have just started to browse through your website and I read a comment from a lady who had ‘survived’ very cold weather and snow in the Emergency Straw Bale shelter, so I looked and found the post about this shelter.