Street vendors under brightly colored plastic tarps sprawl along the street's of Mexico City's historic center.
The tents they live in are small, covered by tarps and plastic sheeting to keep water out.
It's part of a federal program to cover damaged houses for free with heavy duty blue tarps.
When rain is not flooding the ramshackle tents and tarps, the summer sun turns them into hothouses.
In it were sheds and tarps, a makeshift bathroom and shower, along with electricity supplied by extension cords.
These technologies include solar tarps large enough to cover a small tent and capable of powering four computers simultaneously.
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One woman stayed in her hurricane-damaged home with only blue tarps for walls.
Once claimed, the bodies were wrapped in shrouds and brought under plastic tarps.
Syrian children mingled around a building that houses around 100 refugees under tarps.
As the rain comes down, fans have taken to sliding across water-slickened tarps and muddy stretches in a makeshift slip-and-slide.
"You are required to immediately remove all property, including tents, sleeping bags and tarps, from Zuccotti Park, " the note said.
We pre-positioned water, food, generators, tarps and other supplies in incident staging bases based along the path of the storm.
Since then, law enforcement officials have kept the car from view, covering it with tarps while transporting it to courthouses.
World Vision has a team headed into the disaster zone with emergency food kits, blankets, cleaning supplies, hygiene items and tarps.
Within a week or two after they saw the naked woman, tarps went up, shielding the backyard from onlookers, Nina Samoylicz said.
Samoylicz said she called police but said they weren't taken seriously, and Castro erected tarps in his backyard a week or two later.
Reeves cautions not to use clear plastic tarps, which can actually cook the grass on a lawn if left out for a day or two.
EverBank Field has become known for placing tarps on upper deck seats and oftentimes failing to entice enough people to attend games in order to avoid television blackouts.
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At the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, people waiting in line for tickets to this week's arguments on gay marriage held umbrellas or put tarps over their belongings as the snow fell.
In New York City's Staten Island, at a tent shelter set up for superstorm victims still living without power, volunteers used tarps and a makeshift drain to keep the bad weather out.
In the U.S., the Oakland A's and Florida Marlins have employed giant tarps to cover sections of unsold seats in the upper decks of their stadiums (the only difference is that they don't have pictures).
On the first night, we camped far into the jungle beneath tarps and ate barbecued beef marinated in lime juice in the company of a man who lives off the land and travels only by canoe.
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Scores of others, like Delores Culp, a 59-year-old military veteran, live in homes that still have blue tarps on roofs to cover holes, and now they're wondering if the flimsy coverings will stand up to wind and driving rain from Irene.
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