Businessman predicts 7,000 portable toilets for inauguration
Published 11:37 pm Friday, January 16, 2009
WASHINGTON — Never in the annals of the nation have so many portable potties been gathered for so much common good. Or rather, common need.
By Tuesday’s presidential inauguration, a nearly unbroken Great Wall of Privies will have formed between Capitol Hill and the Lincoln Memorial. And with orders coming in daily from Union Station and other locales, Conrad Harrell thinks the total inaugural toilet tally could top 7,000. That’s a one-day bathroom capacity of nearly a half-million gallons.
“There was an event in Germany where they installed 8,000 for a visit by the pope, but there’s never been anything like this in this country,” said Harrell, vice president of Virginia-based Don’s Johns. “We feel like we’re part of history.”
These are heady days for the region’s portable toilet industry, and particularly for Harrell’s company. Having bagged the single biggest contract to install and service 3,500 of those toilets on the Mall, Don’s Johns crews have been working 15-hour days for more than a week. They even secured a waiver from the National Park Service’s usual 10 p.m. work curfew to keep the nonstop train of toilets arriving at all hours. The company scoured the East Coast for available toilets and all but stripped the region of handicap-accessible units.
“Most of the wheelchair portable toilets between New York and North Carolina are in Washington today,” Harrell said.
Dozens of trucks are dropping the potties at a staging area at FedEx Field. From there, workers truck them down in smaller batches, lining them up and strapping them together as the Park Service struggles to find spots for more toilets than the Mall has ever been asked to hold.
Don’s Johns has a history with mass potty logistics, having provided toilets for the Marine Corps Marathon, tailgaters at Redskins games and Fourth of July celebrations on the Mall.
