DRASH (Deployable Rapid Assembly Shelter) is a portable

geodesic In geometry, a geodesic () is a curve representing in some sense the shortest path ( arc) between two points in a surface, or more generally in a Riemannian manifold. The term also has meaning in any differentiable manifold with a connection. ...

shelter that can be set up after arriving on site with no special tools. The structure is supported by composite struts.

Design

DRASH shelters have footprints from up to . Each DRASH shelter comes with flooring and ground covers manufactured from

polyester Polyester is a category of polymers that contain the ester functional group in every repeat unit of their main chain. As a specific material, it most commonly refers to a type called polyethylene terephthalate (PET). Polyesters include natural ...

and nylon. DRASH also provides generators and

trailers Trailer may refer to: a Transportation * Trailer (vehicle), an unpowered vehicle pulled by a powered vehicle ** Bicycle trailer, a wheeled frame for hitching to a bicycle to tow cargo or passengers ** Full-trailer ** Semi-trailer **Horse trailer ...

plus various accessories for the shelters themselves. Several of these accessories can be used to link shelters together. For transport or storage, the shelters pack down to into a transport bag that can be stowed on a trailer or

HMMWV The High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV; colloquial: Humvee) is a family of light, four-wheel drive, military trucks and utility vehicles produced by AM General. It has largely supplanted the roles previously performed by the ori ...

History

DHS Systems founder and CEO A. Jon Prusmack began building DRASH shelters after being inspired by pop-up geodesic domes he came across at trade shows. He founded the company in 1984 and DRASH shelters quickly started to be purchased by military units for use as command posts, tactical operations centers, communications centers, battalion aid stations, and forward surgical support stations. In 2004, the Carlyle Group invested in DHS Systems and formed its new parent company DHS Technologies. In 2009, it was reported that the company was working on a line of shelters/generators that better matched power supply to demand.

Military use

The United States Military and NATO are using DRASH shelters in place of the various tents and shelters used in the past. The Department of Defense has awarded DRASH several contracts.
Most notably, in 2008, the U.S. Army contracted DRASH manufacturer DHS Systems and Northrop Grumman Corporation to provide a family of trailer-mounted support systems under its Standard Integrated Command Post System (SICPS) program. Under the contract, DHS is manufacturing DRASH shelters, while Northrop will be responsible for program management and integrated logistics support. DRASH shelters have been deployed extensively since the beginning of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. DRASH is also currently in use with troops stationed around the world, including the Third Army in Kuwait, and

Joint Task Force Bravo Joint Task Force-Bravo (JTF-Bravo, JTF-B) is a forward-based expeditionary joint task force operating as U.S. Southern Command's (USSOUTHCOM) lead forward element in the Central America (CENTAM) region to promote stability and security and coun ...

's Mobile Surgical Team in

Honduras Honduras, officially the Republic of Honduras, is a country in Central America. The republic of Honduras is bordered to the west by Guatemala, to the southwest by El Salvador, to the southeast by Nicaragua, to the south by the Pacific Oce ...

. DRASH has logistics teams on site in Iraq, Kuwait, Germany and Eastern Europe. These teams do all of the repair and support work for the shelters, generators and trailers.

Civilian use

Hurricane Katrina Hurricane Katrina was a destructive Category 5 Atlantic hurricane that caused over 1,800 fatalities and $125 billion in damage in late August 2005, especially in the city of New Orleans and the surrounding areas. It was at the time the cost ...

caused a surge of interest in DRASH shelters. In Louisiana, an emergency medical team used a DRASH shelter as a mobile hospital. In Mississippi, DRASH shelters were used as living quarters for the State Police aiding victims of the disaster. DRASH shelters have been deployed following hurricanes across the Gulf region, as well as for other civilian operations around the country. In 2006, the state of Connecticut dedicated a DRASH field hospital to a victim of the

2001 anthrax attacks The 2001 anthrax attacks, also known as Amerithrax (a portmanteau of "America" and "anthrax", from its FBI case name), occurred in the United States over the course of several weeks beginning on September 18, 2001, one week after the September 11 ...

.http://www.reevesems.com/userfiles/File/News/emsinsidersummer06.pdf DRASH shelters were also used by the National Guard during the October 2007 California Wildfires, Middletown’s Office of Emergency Management and the state’s Department of Public Health following the

2010 Connecticut power plant explosion The 2010 Connecticut power plant explosion occurred at the Kleen Energy Systems power station in Middletown, Connecticut, United States at 11:17 am EST on February 7, 2010. The plant had been under construction from September 2007, and ...

and Dell Children's Medical Center during the

2009 flu pandemic The 2009 swine flu pandemic, caused by the H1N1 influenza virus and declared by the World Health Organization (WHO) from June 2009 to August 2010, is the third recent flu pandemic involving the H1N1 virus (the first being the 1918–1920 Span ...

. Additionally, international agencies have purchased DRASH to support emergency response. In the summer of 2009, the Brazilian State of Rio de Janeiro purchased two DRASH mobile field hospitals to be deployed during large-scale emergencies.
/ref>

References

External links

* {{official website, http://www.drash.com/
DRASH Shelters
at Armedforces.co.uk Disaster management tools Post–Cold War military equipment of the United States