Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 |
Shelter After Katrina
In the wake of hurricane Katrina, and the flooding of New Orleans, hundreds of thousands of survivors have been left homeless - probably for many months. Large areas have been devastated, without any services. Readers wrote in suggesting that perhaps science fiction writers had some ideas that could be of practical use, given that these writers had imagined devastation on an even greater scale in many books and stories.
Easily errected temporary quarters should be first on the list; Robert Heinlein wrote about
knockdown cabins before World War II gave us the Quonset hut. Government procurers should be scouring military bases for similar items for rapid deployment in the affected states.
In his 1992 novel Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson writes about the U-Stor-It apartment:
Storage places like these are always partially empty; perhaps the additional units could be rented for the next six months by the government.
In his 1998 novel Idoru, William Gibson wrote about the micro-bachelor:
There have been a lot of complaints about traffic in the newly-crowded cities of Houston and Baton Rouge. Encourage car pooling, and then temporarily convert parking structures to housing - killing two birds with one stone.
There is an interesting analog to the U-Stor-It "apartment" that is a real product - the Quik House, a prefabricated kit house made from recycled shipping containers. The basic model has three bedrooms and two and one-half baths in 2,000 square feet.
Hiro Protagonist and Vitaly Chernobyl, roommates, are chilling out in their home, a spacious 20 by 30 in a U-Stor-It in Inglewood, California. The room has a concrete slab floor, corrugated steel walls separating it from the neighboring units and ... a roll-up steel door that faces northwest, giving them a few red rays ... when the sun is setting over LAX.
(Read more about the U-Stor-It).
He used most of his first month's salary to lease a micro-bachelor in a retrofitted parking structure on Broadway Avenue, Santa Monica. … The floor of his apartment was terraced against the original slope of the parking garage.
(Read more about the micro-bachelor)
(Quik House)
The port of Houston handles more foreign tonnage than any other American port; they must have many hundreds of empty containers awaiting use.
(Micro Compact Home m-ch)
Another futuristic product, the m-ch Micro Compact Home, is a 2.6 meter cube that provides a double bed on an upper level and working table and dining space for four or five people on a lower level. The kitchen bar is arranged to serve these two levels. The m-ch is built complete and can be placed anywhere on a level site.
Finally (and as a last resort), John Brunner wrote about paid-avoidance zones in his 1975 novel Shockwave Rider. In the novel, the Great Bay Quake had finally happened in California; the scale of the disaster was too great for even the government to handle. So the government set aside particular areas that would never receive any more than basic services - electricity and water - period. And each resident was paid a small stipend to forego modern living.
Thanks to the readers who wrote in with suggestions for this topic. Take a look at additional reader comments on Katrina shelter.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 9/8/2005)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 17 )
Related News Stories - (" Living Space ")
With Mycotecture, We'll Just Grow The Space Habitats We Need
'The only real cost was in the plastic balloon that guided the growth of the coral and enclosed the coral's special air-borne food.' - Larry Niven, 1968.
Vast Apartment Living Will Get Even More Vast
'What is your population', I asked. 'About eighty millions.' - Louis Tucker, 1929.
LiquidView Ersatz Windows, ala Philip K. Dick
'due to his bad financial situation he had given up trying to imagine that he lived on a great hill with a view...' - Philip K. Dick, 1969.
Solar House Concept Unfolds Solar Panels Like A Flower
'They are heated and air conditioned by a solar plant that tops anything... that we have today.' - Clifford Simak, 1953.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
Miss Alabama Beauty Contest Offers Different Standards
'...they moved with the ease of dandelion puffs.'
Has Musk Given Up On Full Self Driving (FSD)?
'...some bored drone pusher in a remote driving centre...'
Prufrock-3 'The Monster' Ready To Launch
Just go for it.
Drones In Vast Airborne Grids
'These pods were programmed to hang in space in a hexagonal grid pattern...'
Starship Special Edition For Lunar Shuttle
Love those special edition spaceships.
Capturing Asteroids With Nets
'...the meteor caught and halted just as a small boy catches a swift ball in his cap.'
Project Hyperion - Generation Ship Designers Needed!
'We have decided that it shall be but one ship... it must contain everything needed to take us through the generations.'
AI Welfare Position At Anthropic Filled By Human
'You’re the robopsychologist of the plant, so you’re to study the robot itself...'
Marslink Proposed By SpaceX
'It was the heart of the Solar System's communication line...'
Simple Way To Defeat AI Face Recognition
'... designed to foil facial recognition systems.'
Wood-Panelled LignoSat Launched
'The Consul remembered his first glimpse of the kilometer-long treeship...'
Laser-Beam Welding In Orbital Factories
'His contract with Space Industries required him to work summers in their orbital factory.'
'Iceberg House' Of Travis Kelce Reflects Science Fiction Of Past Century
'The basement was huge... carved deep into the rock that folded up to underlie the ridge...'
Mechazilla Arms Catch A Falling Starship, But Check Out SF Landing-ARMS
'...the rocket’s landing-arms automatically unfolded.'
A System To Defeat AI Face Recognition
'...points and patches of light... sliding all over their faces in a programmed manner that had been designed to foil facial recognition systems.'
Robot Hand Separate From Robot
'The crawling, exploring object was V-Stephen's surgeon-hand...'
