Disaster Recovery News

The following is a video series related to emergency preparedness techniques that you can implement today.

Video 1: The Need to Be Prepared

Video 2: A 72-Hour Kit

Video 3: Reducing Risks

Video 4: Evacuation

Video 5: Religious leaders discuss the importance of emergency preparedness

Learn more about emergency preparedness at home.

More about emergency preparedness for your business.

Dangerous to your health and destructive to your belongings, mold spores are always in the air and summer can provide them with the right conditions to grow, especially if you do not have an air conditioner in your building. When it comes to this destructive fungal force, prevention is as important as its treatment, if not more.

Mold Prevention

• If you do not have an air conditioner in your home, regularly clean areas that experience humidity or condensation with a cleanser that contains bleach. Such areas include toilets and the floor around them, under sinks, around exposed pipes and windowsills.
• Always use the exhaust fans as you bathe or cook.
• Dry wet documents as soon as they experience water damage.
• Use a fan to circulate the air in the room so hot air does not stay trapped by your ceiling.
• If an area of your building gets wet, use fans and dehumidifiers to dry it out immediately. If you experience severe water damage, call a restoration specialist.
• Keep everything dry. Because mold thrives in moist conditions, eliminating them can keep mold at bay.

Damaged roofs and leaky pipes can also lead to mold damage, so if it becomes a recurring problem, have your home inspected by a professional.

Learn more about mold prevention.

[Image: Infrogmation]

In a recently settled class action lawsuit, Tenet Healthcare Corporation recently settled for $25 million. The number of individuals who participated in the lawsuit is unknown, but those in the class claimed that New Orleans’ Memorial Medical Center lack of emergency preparedness caused an unreasonable amount of harm when 2005’s Hurricane Katrina devastated the area.

The Real Cost

An article by ProPublica states that there were almost 1,000 individuals in the hospitals, not counting hospital staff. Out of this population, 187 of the individuals were patients. When the disasters caused by Hurricane Katrina occurred, the backup generators in the hospital failed and help in the form of rescue helicopters did not arrive until two days after the natural disaster. The article reports that the hospital sought the help of the Coast Guard, National Guard, several government and private ambulance companies and FEMA, but the response was frenzied. In the end, rescue workers found 45 bodies at the Memorial Medical Center.

Nation-Wide Unpreparedness

Hurricane Katrina opened the eyes of several health care systems. The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services reported in May 2011 that out of all of the hospitals that participated in the 2009 National Hospital Preparedness Program (HPP), only 76 percent of the hospitals met 90 percent of the all-hazards preparedness criteria. While this number is an improvement compared to 2005’s figures, only 85 percent of the more than 6,000 hospitals in the U.S. take advantage of and participate in the HPP.

What’s at Stake for Your Business?

Emergency preparedness and recovery is not just a topic medical centers need to consider, as all businesses are responsible for ensuring the well-being of those on their property if the unthinkable happens. Preparing for the worst can mean the difference between saving the lives or wishing you had taken the time to create an emergency disaster plan. If you are currently not prepared for a disaster, what would a devastating event cost you and your business?

Learn more about developing a plan for your business from the experts.

[Image: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center]

During a disaster, one of your top enemies is panic. You can prevent feeling panicked when the unthinkable happens by creating an emergency plan for your home and business. By making an emergency plan, you can be ready to get to safety in a matter of minutes with the essential items you need.

Ways to Stay Panic-Free

• Plan a meeting place. With your family and/or employees, designate a meeting spot inside and outside of the home or office. For example, meeting spots can be the bathroom and the neighbor’s mailbox. These meeting spots should be the safest locations in and outside of a building.
• Establish escape routes. Plan at least two escape routes within a home or office and on the streets. Keep in mind that a road or an area of a building may be blocked during a disaster, so it is good to always have a backup route. Practice using these escapes routes on a regular basis so children or employees become overly familiar with them and are less likely to panic when they need to escape.
• Designate a contact person within your family or organization. This will come in handy if someone is separated from the group. Have family members or employees memorize the phone number and email of the designated contact person. It is also a good idea to designate an out-of-state contact in the event there are problems with the local telephone system.
• Print your emergency plan. Include the evacuation routes, important phone numbers and the location of important items you may want to retrieve after a disaster.
• Consider your essential items. When you need to get to a safe place, the last thing on your mind should be the documents or photos you left behind. Therefore, create digital copies of all your important documents and photos, regularly back them up on a flash or external hard drive and store them online. This way, it will be easier to restore damaged documents. Additionally, create a kit that contains cash, prescription medications, bandages, pain relievers, duct tape, flashlight, battery-powered radio and your printed emergency plan.
• Flag the items in your home or office. Sometimes during a disaster, you will have a chance to grab items of importance, such as photo albums, contracts and heirloom books. Mark the important items that you have time to grab before an evacuation with something that is easily identifiable. For example, you could stick a large reflective sticker on the spine of a book. For books and document holders that you do not want to ruin with a sticker, place a clear plastic cover around the outside covers of the book and place the sticker on the cover.
• Mark your calendar. Every six months, review your emergency plan, update the phone numbers in it and make sure all the supplies in your kit still work.

Learn more about developing a plan for your business.

[Image: Bill Bradford]

When the rains clear and you do the regular inspections and maintenance on your business, the last thing you want to find are several pools of water in your crawl space or around your foundation, rot or black mold on the floor and wet documents. Your may want to immediately replace your flooring, but what you must do first is address your drainage problem or you will have repeat water damage problems.

Building Inspections

If your building has a crawl space, inspect it at least twice a year for water entry, flooding or decay. It is also a good idea to have a pest control service inspect the building for signs of critters that can cause structural damage.

Gutter Placement

While conducting a building inspection, make sure the gutters remain directed at least six feet away from the foundation. However, if you have a sloping yard or the business is on a hillside, you may need to extend the gutter drain further. While a runoff drains in the ground may not be your ideal business accessory, you may need to install them just under the surface of the building’s landscaping to prevent pooling. Burying a French drain around the perimeter of your building’s foundation down to the footing is an effective and discrete way to prevent water damage, rot and mold.

Landscaping

Your business’ landscaping may also be to blame for bad drainage. Yards that slope towards a building, mulch, loose rocks, weeds and topsoil near a foundation can direct runoff water and rain towards that area with the help of gravity. If this is a problem you encounter, consider using a heavy clay soil that you compact and slope as your first layer of landscaping can help prevent water from traveling towards your business. Additionally, make sure that concrete walkways, patios and driveways, as well as those made from pavers, slope to ensure proper drainage.

Sump Pumps

If your business is too low for a gravity-drained system to draw water away from the building, you may need to install an exterior sump pump. This will help raise and direct the water to a location where gravity will help drain the water away and prevent flooding.

Learn more about mold and water damage prevention.

[image: bats22]