May 14, 2020

Floating Above “19”

By Kristen Sierra (amazonred53@gmail.com, website)
Artist, Shilshole Prepares

The author will give this presentation at the Pandemic Urbanism Symposium in a session titled “Urban Form Beyond the Norm,” from 10:15 – 11:15 AM on May 29, 2020.

I live aboard a sailboat at Shilshole Bay Marina. There are roughly 1,450 boats, 350 of which are live-aboards. I am responsible for our community response to COVID-19. Shilshole Prepares is a Volunteer disaster preparedness effort that is connected to the City of Seattle’s Office of Emergency Management. We are one of more than one hundred Hubs across the city of Seattle.

We have a project called Boater-to-Boater, which involves six boaters to guide and direct our 39 volunteers. Services we can provide include groceries/meds/dog walking and other daily needs. We have a weekly VHF radio program that is open to all tenants of the marina. We have one for kids and one for adults. Each dock has a Captain (a go-to person who can offer direction and assistance on a variety of issues).