tar paper-covered pine barracks with knotholes in the floor. The wind would blow so hard, it would toss rocks around." Camp layout and facilities The camp site was situated on at Manzanar, leased from the City of Los Angeles, with the developed portion covering approximately . Eight guard towers equipped with machine guns were located at intervals around the perimeter fence, which was topped by barbed wire. The grid layout used in the camp was standard, and a similar layout was used in all of the relocation centers. The residential area was about one square mile (2.6 km2), and consisted of 36 blocks of hastily constructed, by tarpaper barracks, with each family (up to eight people) living in a single by "apartment" in the barracks. Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston, a Manzanar survivor, described the living conditions in her book: “After dinner we were taken to Block 16, a cluster of fifteen barracks that had just been finished a day or so earlier—although finished was hardly a word for it. The shacks were built of pine planking covered with tarpaper. They sat on concrete footings, with about two feet of open space between the floorboards and the ground. Gaps showed between the planks, and as the weeks passed and the green wood dried out, the gaps widened. Knotholes gaped in the uncovered floor.” (Farewell to Manzanar pg. 18) In the book, she goes on to explain the size and layout of the barracks. They were divided into six units that were sixteen long by twenty feet wide, and a single light bulb hung from the ceiling. They had an oil stove for heat as well as two army blankets each, some mattress covers and steel army cots. These apartments consisted of partitions with no ceilings, eliminating any chance of privacy. Lack of privacy was a major problem, especially since the camp had communal men's and women's latrines. Former Manzanar inmate Rosie Kakuuchi said that the communal facilities were "[o]ne of the hardest things to endure", adding that neither the latrines nor showers had partitions or stalls. Each residential block also had a communal mess hall (large enough to serve 300 people at one time), a laundry room, a recreation hall, an ironing room, and a heating oil storage tank, although Block 33 lacked a recreation hall. In addition to the residential blocks, Manzanar had 34 additional blocks that had staff housing, camp