Emergencies....Are You Prepared?

You're officially initiated into the property management world when you've gone through your first crisis. In my many years on site, I dealt with fire, flood, ice storm, hurricanes, dead bodies, robberies, shootings...fun stuff! By far the one that had the biggest impact on me was the fire I experienced. I was the only person working on a Saturday in the middle of a very large thunderstorm. In what seemed like an instant, one of the main fire alarms in the leasing office went off indicating trouble in a building. Before I could even investigate, a resident came running in to say they saw smoke coming from one of our buildings-it had been struck by lightning. My instincts kicked into gear, as well as some great training. I was fortunate that only 1 week before, I had been through the Emergency Management module of my CAM course. Talk about perfect timing! I grabbed my keys, keys to the building and cell phone and made my way to the building. I ran into our maintenance tech who lived on site and saw what was happening and he took the building keys and went to get everyone and their pets out while I used my cell phone to call the fire department, red cross and a disaster management company and moved everyone away from the building to make way for the emergency vehicles. Then I sat back and watched a 24 unit building burn to the ground before my eyes. Ya, not fun. But, I'm happy to report that the only casualty was a single goldfish, so overall, it was a successful crisis.

Most of these items occur unexpectedly, so it's important have a plan in place so that you know exactly how to handle them in the heat of the moment. I'll be honest and say that for each company I worked for when I went through the events I listed above, there weren't any clear guidelines on how to handle situations like this. My CAM training was the only official training I had for emergency management. It helped me tremendously for the fire, but the other events I experienced before that could have been handled a bit smoother. So take a look at your emergency plans. If your corporate office has written them for you, take a moment to review them yourself as well as with your team to make sure that everyone knows what steps to take in an emergency. If you don't have guidelines, take the liberty to write them yourself. The last thing you want is to be caught off guard in a critical situation. The way you handle it will have an effect of many, many people.


Morgan Oney, CAM
www.mynewsletterconnection.com & www.getmoreleases.com