Photo by pollyesther

So when you have hundreds of thousands of people gathering in any one place, you have to, you know, provide them facilities to take care of their natural (non-sexual) urges, right? Yes, and that’s why the Presidential Inaugural Committee will have 1,500 porta-potties on hand on and around the National Mall, U.S. Capitol and parade route.

But is that enough for the estimated 600,000 to 800,000 people that may come to Monday’s festivities? Certainly not, warned George Washington law professor and uber-litigator John Banzhaf today in a press release:

The Park Service apparently rests its estimate on the number of potties required based upon ratios established during other Mall events like the Fourth of July or Smithsonian events on the Mall.

But these events occur during the summer when most people are wearing shorts, so they can enter and exit the facilities very quickly, and when they are generally able to move around easily.

But inaugurations are cold, and people are often required to remain in one place for many hours at a time. Having many layers of clothing on can double or even triple the time necessary to use the facilities, even for men when flies don’t work as well when long johns or other undergarments are used.

While this can be a pain for everyone, it’ll be a much bigger pain for women, said Banzhaf—who has been called the “father of potty parity.” (A few years ago he threatened to file a lawsuit against the city for not providing enough women’s restrooms at RFK Stadium during the Nationals’ inaugural season there.)

There were roughly 5,000 porta-potties for the 2009 inauguration, which was significantly bigger than this one is supposed to be. So how many would be appropriate for this inaugural? Well, there’s a handy calculator for that, and it says that for every 100,000 people for a seven-hour-long event you’d need 741, or over 4,400 for the crowd expected next Monday.

It could shape up to be a pretty shitty day, huh?

UPDATE, 6:45 p.m.: Crisis averted! Well, maybe. A tipster tells us that the total count of porta-potties has been upped to 2,400 on the National Mall, U.S. Capitol and parade route.