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Our research and our developmental work
again has yielded construction materials
and techniques that either completely
eliminate or minimize to almost negligible
levels any outgassing, particularly from
formaldehyde. Any disaster housing unit
that FEMA accepts from any vendor is
accepted only on the condition that that
unit is tested prior to delivery to FEMA
and he testing results fall below the
established standards so before FEMA
actually accepts a unit from any housing
provider it undergoes rigorous testing to
some very strict standards.
In terms of the again materials from which
they're constructed the way they are
constructed and actual features inside the
unit we're attempting to put units out
there that are more suitable to long-term
occupancy by families so we're putting in
some comfort features and again were
really focusing on health and safety type
features in these units so we're upgrading
as we go on and as we learn more and more
were putting units out there that will be
more suitable to the range of use and
essentially the livability of the unit for
those occupying the unit.
We'll be using students here at the
National Emergency Training Center, the
instructors, anyone else who may have some
interest in the unit and we're also
looking for a range of people from those
who have absolutely no experience at all
with disaster housing to people that have
a considerable amount of experience so
that we get a good cross section of
feedback in a range of feedback.
So we'll actually have people occupying
these units here at the National Emergency
Training Center and once that occupancy is
completed, or when the class is completed,
they'll be providing us feedback
information through some standard
evaluation processes that we've developed
and then we'll be able to take those
evaluations and start judging the
performance of the unit.
We plan to have this project going on for
several months so we can go through
different seasons and different climate
changes and different types of
environmental conditions.
We expect to learn a lot and we've already
learned a lot not only about the units
themselves but about the providers and
suppliers of the units.
Again, things like how well or how easy it
is to install the units, how well the
units perform, the delivery of the units,
whether any specialized equipment is
required to install units and particularly
important is how easy it is for us to
maintain the unit so we're collecting all
this information from the moment a unit
arrives here at our testing facility and
then we have staff on hand who will be
here through the entire process to
continue to collect not only evaluations
from the occupants but collect information
as to how well the units are performing
living up to the environmental conditions.
We'll be using the results toward our
continued development, as I said, our
ultimate goal is to hopefully be able to
have decision makers in the field evaluate
their conditions they're facing on any
disaster and input those conditions into
some type of a tool and that tool will in
turn produce a range of disaster housing
units that might be suitable for that
particular operation or particular
circumstances of that disaster so again
we're looking to increase the range of
options that we have available.