Transport: Disaster Wagon

One cold day about three years ago, Aaron Meier Frank of Portland, Ore. stopped to watch a fireman hustling up a ladder with a steaming pot of coffee for his water-soaked comrades in the upper floors. That sight gave Aaron Meier Frank an idea. He would give Portland an elaborately equipped "disaster wagon." Mr. Frank, a lively sportsman of 48 and benevolent scion of oldtime Portland merchants, is president of Portland's huge Meier & Frank department store.

Last March, with due ceremony, Benefactor Frank presented his streamlined "disaster wagon" to the city. Hordes of Portlanders gaped at its shiny coffee urn, at...