Geologists are predicting a monster earthquake in our region and people are starting to prepare.
- What are we going to do when the toilets don’t work?
- What’s going to happen to sewer infrastructure?
- Do we have the knowledge and materials we need to build safe, functional household and multi-household toilets?
Answering these questions was the goal of our Fall 2011 Toilets for Emergency Campaign. The October 22 Water! 2011 Festival featured our booth on household sanitation and a workshop on neighborhood level emergency sanitation. This was followed by November appearances at neighborhood groups and the opportunity to join emergency response experts at a December workshop entitled Disaster Sanitation: What to do about Pee and Poo? in Clark County, Washington.
Now that the City of Portland has endorsed the Christchurch Twin No Mix Emergency Toilet and other local authorities are noticing, PHLUSH will keep working on emergency sanitation in 2012. Emergency sanitation is normally addressed only in situations of population displacement, severe flooding, and strong earthquakes like the one we are preparing for. We look forward, therefore, to partnering with agencies and organizations in the Pacific Northwest to develop and pre-test high quality awareness materials and how-to manuals for both the general public and disaster response specialists.
Current partners include Multnomah County Office of Emergency Management, Portland Bureau of Emergency Management , Cloacina, PNCA’s Sanitation, Hygiene Innovative Technologies (SHIT) Lab, TransitionPDX, Sustainable Sanitation Alliance, SuSanA Working Group on Emergency Sanitation, East Multnomah Soil and Water Conservation District, Neighbors-West Northwest, and the Old Town Chinatown Neighborhood Association. We are especially delighted to be collaborating with a talented group in Chirstchurch, New Zealand whose work got underway at the time of the February earthquake.
If you’d like to join us please get in touch or come to one of our meetings. We meet December 19 and January 23, both at 5:30 pm at Floyd’s Coffee, 118 NW Couch, in Portland’s Old Town near the Skidmore Fountain MAX stop. Everyone is welcome.
