As an emergency shelter the hall holds fewer people than the guide implies: at 2 m² each it shelters 50-75 people on its main floor and 75-100 using the whole building, against a settlement of 100-150, and the guide’s 500 L water tank is only enough for 100 people for about 6 hours at the corpus minimum of 20 L per person per day. Three days for 100 people needs about 6,000 L of water, about 840,000 kcal of food and several toilets, so decide in advance who shelters in the hall and who in the houses.
Part of Community Gathering Hall
Emergency shelter capability is the ability of the hall to house, feed, water and keep safe a settlement’s people for several days during a disaster, attack or extreme weather.
What The Guide Asks, And What The Arithmetic Gives
The gathering-hall guide makes the hall the settlement’s emergency shelter (see also Emergency Shelter for individual shelters) and lists five requirements: structural robustness (build to a higher standard than houses, since this building must stand when others do not); a cistern or tank of at least 500 L inside or attached; a locked cabinet with a rotating emergency food supply of dried foods and grain; a sanitation location, such as a composting toilet, even if used only in emergencies; and capacity for the whole settlement at 2 m² per person, sleeping on the floor, for several days.
Each can be checked against the guide’s own other numbers.
Worked Example: Space, Water, Food, Toilets
Inputs: 100 people; hall main floor 100-150 m²; whole building 150-200 m²; 2 m² per person; water 20 L per person per day, the minimum in Community Water System; food 2,800 kcal per person per day, the community average in Caloric Budget for a Community; three days.
- Space on the main floor: 100 ÷ 2 = 50 to 150 ÷ 2 = 75 people. Whole building: 150 ÷ 2 = 75 to 200 ÷ 2 = 100. Floor needed for 100 people: 100 × 2 = 200 m²; for 150 people: 300 m².
- Water per day for 100 people: 100 × 20 = 2,000 L. A 500 L tank gives 500 ÷ 2,000 = 0.25 days = 6 hours. For three days: 2,000 × 3 = 6,000 L (6 m³); for 150 people: 150 × 20 × 3 = 9,000 L.
- The per-person water in the 500 L tank: 500 ÷ 100 = 5 L each, a quarter of the 20 L minimum for one day.
- Food for three days: 100 × 2,800 × 3 = 840,000 kcal.
- Toilets: the Sphere humanitarian standards, which this corpus does not otherwise state, allow up to about 20 people per toilet; that gives 100 ÷ 20 = 5 toilets. A single composting toilet location does not meet that for 100 people.
The conclusion is that a hall built to the guide’s own numbers is a shelter for part of the settlement, with water for hours and one toilet. To shelter all of it the hall needs 200-300 m² of floor, 6,000-9,000 L of stored water, a food store of the size above, and five to eight toilets (150 ÷ 20 = 7.5), or the plan must send people home.
What Else A Crowded Shelter Needs
- Heat and air. People give off about 100 W each at rest, so 100 people give 10 kW; in a cold hall that warms it, but in a closed one the air goes stale and damp, so keep an air inlet and outlet (Heating a Large Space Efficiently).
- Sanitation. Crowded shelters spread disease through shared water and toilets; keep hand washing at the entrance and the latrine downhill of the water (Camp Sanitation).
- Medical care. Part of the hall will be a ward, which reduces the sleeping space (Medical and First Aid Station).
- Structure. Build to a higher standard than houses, with the roof designed for the worst snow or wind of the site (Large-Span Roof Structures).
What You Need
- A list of who shelters where, by cluster and household
- A tank or cistern of at least 6,000 L for 100 people for three days (Cisterns and Rainwater Storage)
- Locked food, rotated so it does not spoil
- Toilets and washing points for the sheltering population
- Two clear exits and bedding stored away from the fire
Method
Step 1: Compute capacity from the floor area, as in step 1.
Step 2: Assign the overflow to houses, stores or cluster buildings, keeping the most vulnerable in the hall.
Step 3: Size water, food and toilets for the number actually sheltering.
Step 4: Drill the move into the hall, including the water and food check.
Step 5: Rotate stores each season.
Common Mistakes
- Counting the main hall’s meeting capacity as the shelter capacity.
- Storing 500 L and calling it a water supply.
- No plan for the waste.
Safety
A crowded shelter is the highest-risk room in the settlement
Floor sleeping at 2 m² each is crowded, fire spreads through bedding, and a single exit blocked by bodies is fatal. Keep two exits and clear aisles to them, never lock or bar the doors with people inside, keep heaters and lamps away from bedding and vent every fire to the outside to prevent carbon monoxide.
What’s Next
- Learn next: Emergency Assembly Areas — the move into the hall
- Combine with: Sizing for Settlement Population — the same arithmetic for exits