02/12/2020
Ask My Safety Expert.com E-Safety Series
Volume 17, Unit 33
Feb 2020 publication date
Author: Tony Buglione Florida Health and Safety Officer
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Was Vince Lombardi right (in the arena outside football) when it comes to emergency preparedness
with the expression that the best defense is a good offense?
Have you ever met someone who has been through one of the worst headline splashing events of the past 25 years? Well you have now. Permit me to introduce myself – Tony Buglione 29 year loss control professional for insurance companies. I happened to be the guy that AIG went to in the San Fernando Valley after the 1994 Northridge quake occurred who was given the job inspecting businesses that bought earthquake and flood insurance AFTER the quake had happened. I know we are total strangers, but this is the equivalent of closing the barn door after the horse has run out can turn out to be rather expensive.
How expensive can it be? We can take the example of a media reporting company who was contracted with CNN to cover special events in the Los Angeles area. Apparently, nobody at the company in question had assessed the storage racks of their warehouse where $200,000 in VCRs were being stored. Now these racks can be secured from severe earthquakes by using a $1.50 bolt called a “redhead bolt”. I would estimate the cost to save $200,000 worth of VCRs (by installing redhead bolts in all storage racks) at no more the $5,000 liberally speaking. OUCH! Some genius at the organization decided to buy the earthquake and flood insurance AFTER the company had experienced its loss.
Let’s see what FEMA has to say about emergency preparedness in 2015. “WASHINGTON – A recent Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) survey found that nearly 60 percent of American adults have not practiced what to do in a disaster by participating in a disaster drill or preparedness exercise at work, school, or home in the past year. Further, only 39 percent of respondents have developed an emergency plan and discussed it with their household. This is despite the fact that 80 percent of Americans live in counties that have been hit with a weather-related disaster since 2007, as reported by the Washington Post. With the number and severity of weather-related disasters on the rise, the America’s PrepareAthon! is an opportunity for individuals, organizations, and communities to take action to prepare for specific hazards through group discussions, drills, and exercises.”:
Let’s sum up what interstaterestoration.com says are the seven steps are needed for proper preparation. Here are the steps – 1.) build a cross functional team – translation put together members of management and labor who have a wide variety of skills that may be needed 2.) Create an action plan – have specific sets of steps that will be followed in the event of each potential emergency situation. Here on the college campus – we are re-writing and updating on what steps we will do in the event of an active shooting 3.) Maintain and fine tune – obviously a plan that is shoved in the back draw what do anybody any good if it isn’t constantly looked at 4.) Don’t forget your supply chain – where and how you will get your emergency items needs to be put into details 5.) Fine tune again – we live in a constantly changing society so the plan must constantly be made relevant by constant attention 6.) Train your staff – if this item is forgotten, the rest of your planning is irrelevant. Lack of training will result in staff improvising rather than using your pre-planned steps 7.) Monitor for threats – Ok when events like 9-Eleven happen, company plans need to change accordingly.
The emergencies that resulted from the Northridge quake were actually fairly predictable if you were ready to listen not talk. On January 17, 1994 the quake occurred but one year before PBS actually had program that totally predicted the quake. I actually recorded a one-hour program where a Northridge fire fighter explained how the crack in his garage of his Northridge home was getting wider and wider. He then spent the rest of the hour giving highly detailed plans on to best survive the coming Northridge quake. He spent a substantial portion of the program describing his day to day planning for the quake which included counting the number of bridges that he had to cross over since those bridges could be knocked out in the event of a quake. When I watched the program, my first reaction was “aren’t you overdoing that prep stuff a bit”. However, one year later, I realized that all of his advance planning was essential in the event of a quake.
One of the clients who signed up for earthquake and flood insurance with AIG that I visited was a bowling alley that was situated on the 2nd floor of a 1=2+2 story 6” concrete tilt-up building. The first floor contained several office-warehouse occupancies. The building was an estimated 200’ X 200’ situated in an industrial park around Northridge CA area. I went up to the 2nd floor where I knew the owner of the bowling alley was also the building owner.
A brief introductory conversation followed at which I inquired about any serious safety concerns that I should know about before beginning my building inspection. He replied that he could not think of any serious concerns, so I thanked him for allowing me to do the inspection and started doing my exterior building measurements before heading inside. As I ran my measuring rolatape down the left side of the building I noticed one of the side doors open so I peered my head inside. There in front of me was a 30 to 40-foot-long foundation crack that was an estimated one foot to two foot wide.
I asked the gentleman coming out of the door of the 1st floor office if he knew when the crack would be repaired, and he replied “negative”. The rear wall of the building featured a host of surprises. There were so many cracks in the rear wall structure that ran from the ground to the roof I lost count of them all. If you have seen a map of the Mississippi River and its tributaries that you would be able to get a picture of how cracks there were. These fissures went from the foundation up to the ceiling. This was a building that could not survive one more quake of any size.
Unfortunately, the building owner had no alternative plan on what to do with his tenants once a quake had happened. His lack of planning put the stress of keeping the building open on the City of Los Angeles who must have inspected the building and seen the same things I saw. The city allowed many buildings to be occupied such as this just to keep the economy of Los Angeles going instead of grinding it to a halt to check out how many substandard buildings there were in the San Fernando Valley.
Let’s see what happens if our bowling area buddy uses the seven steps of emergency preparedness for his situation. Step one – build a cross sectional team of people with different skill sets. Let’s call our bowling alley and building owner buddy Ernie. If Ernie were to build a cross sectional team with different skill sets he would need to line up a realtor to have found him an alternative building, a general contractor who could begin immediate repair work on the building, a banker or financier who would arrange the funds needed for the renovation, an assistant who knew all of the team members and could make them work together.
Step Two – create an action plan that has a set of specific steps that would result in termination of the problem in a specific time frame. Ernie and his assistant would choose a time frame that was feasible given the limitations on his financial and human resources that his banker or financier could provide him as well as when his general contractor would be able to deliver his/her work crews to Ernie’s site with the needed building materials.
Step Three – Maintain and fine tune the action plan. The action plan would need to change as various elements of the plan reach constraints that an emergency on the scale of a 6.0 earthquake or greater would present on Ernie’s resources. Updating the plan every year would keep Ernie on the cutting edge of his action plan most likely being able to be implemented. Of course, even a revised plan will be found to have deficiencies when it meets the realities of a 1994 earthquake.
Step Four – the supply chain section will need to be updated when it meets realities of a 1994 6.5 earthquake. Suppliers who were counted on to have equipment and materials may have offered those needed materials and equipment others who requested them with a higher urgency than Ernie and his office-warehouse building.
Step Five – Fine Tune again – Ernie would probably want to create different levels of urgency when he fine tunes his plan. During the 1994 quake entire freeway overpasses were destroyed which would hinder any delivery of materials and work crews. Alternative delivery routes should be put into Ernie’s plan if the most popularly used routes were disabled. Those routes chosen would need the approval of the general contractor who is delivering to Ernie’s building worst case scenario relief.
Step Six – Train your staff – Ernie is going to need his chosen assistants (and himself) all on the same page depending on the level of emergency envisioned. That training should take place at least once per year with potential re-training revisions as needed. Many managers view this as a waste of productive time because they don’t understand how low worker productivity will become in the event of a 1994 earthquake like the San Fernando valley event.
Step seven – Monitor for threats – If Ernie had tuned into that PBS station with our fireman’s earthquake prep program just one year before it is likely that he probably would not had found himself in the position he was when I showed up to see the severe condition of his building (assuming that he took the warnings seriously). Sixty minutes of discussion of how many problems an earthquake on the scale of the San Fernando Valley if taken seriously would have revised any emergency action plan that was conceived before the event occurred.
In summary, it looks like the old expression that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Isn’t it worth putting yourself in the elite class of those who are prepared for a severe event than those who are caught off guard when an event occurs that management discounted as remote?
Sources
1.) https://www.fema.gov/news-release/2015/04/28/sixty-percent-americans-not-practicing-disaster-fema-urges-everyone-prepare
2.) 7 STEPS FOR EFFECTIVE BUSINESS EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS PLANNING by https://www.interstaterestoration.com/blog/7-steps-effective-business-emergency-preparedness-planning/
3.) When the next storm strikes, will you be ready Safety Decisions Winter/Spring 2020
About the Author – Tony Buglione is a forty year plus safety professional with a four year degree in Occupational Safety from the University of Wisconsin -Whitewater. He is currently a safety officer with a central Florida state college. He has 29 years plus in the field working for major insurance companies as a loss control consultant with national known accounts such as the Pl***oy Mansion, 1996 America’s Cup, a Seaworld water ski contractor, Anaheim Convention Center and many others.
