Charge of the Popup Brigade

I should have invested in tents. Or maybe RVs. Definitely Tyvek.
I'd be a multimillionaire by now.
It's THE hottest growth industry of the post-9/11 economy, "it" of course being the sea of baubles and toys on which billions of your tax dollars have been spent in the quest to save us from the legion of Biblical plagues that terrorists are certainly preparing to unleash on us any day now.
But I worry about more than smallpox or anthrax or panflu (and that last, technically, wouldn't be the terrorists' doing, but the money to combat it all comes from the same place).
Thumb through any magazine dedicated to fire, EMS, police or "homeland security" and you can't avoid one obvious truth:
To counter Al-Qaeda's next attack on American soil, hundreds of intrepid security and safety corporations plan to send not troops but a sea of canvas tents, rubber huts and microwave-emitting RVs driven by Tyvek-suited first responders.
These companies have amassed a dazzling array of tents, pop-up trailers, tagalongs, pullalongs, tents with shower heads, red tents, blue tents, yellow tents, tents color-coded to the type of chemical agent used, Winnebagos jammed with more electronic equipment than the Space Shuttle, and of course, my personal favorite and an example of corporate synergy so refined as to make the bean counters at DynCorp or Halliburton break down and cry, one company has come out with a radio-infested combo popup trailer AND tent, whose purpose is as unclear as the entire device itself but the ads pitching it are pretty nifty.
Hopefully, if the day ever comes that we need this stuff, it will all work as planned.
Until then, I'm buying me some shares of Camping World.


FOLLOW UP: Get ready for lots and lots of new tent designs, once this report gets out there. I believe in preparedness, but sometimes I wonder how many hospitals could be built, how many ED beds opened, how many Paramedics and EMTs put on the streets, how many ventilators bought, how many doses of flu vaccine given out, how many uninsured could be covered, how many public health ills eliminated, all by redirecting even a portion of the billions and billions of dollars the federal government has spent ensuring that we have more RVs than a Utah salt flat, more tyvek suits than a field of McMansions, and that every first responder who goes to a convention is wearing the appropriate golf shirt?
A lot, I'd bet....