It could be the event no one wants to think about, or the one thing that “will never happen to me.” Hurricane, pandemic, bomb threat the event may come in many forms, but all have the potential to shut down a building and disrupt tenants’ ability to do business. In 2010 alone, blizzards crippled the east coast, massive flooding overwhelmed Nashville, and Times Square was evacuated twice in one week due to a car bomb and a suspicious package. Yet surprisingly, many building owners and managers don’t have emergency preparedness plans in place to deal with whatever “it” may be.
And that is a serious mistake, says Joe Donovan, senior vice president for Beacon Capital Partners in Washington, DC, and chair of BOMA International’s emergency preparedness committee.
“Ever since September 11, the job of the property manager has changed,” says Donovan. “The old model of ‘I just have to focus on the four walls of my building to the curb’ is no longer applicable; if you’re not paying attention to the entire neighborhood in which you’re located, a building across the street could put you out of business if they have an event. It doesn’t necessarily have to happen to you.”
Planning and Communicating
Developing a plan goes far beyond the safety manual gathering dust on a shelf; it’s a matter of determining what services your tenant mix needs most, devising contingencies that work in a variety of circumstances, working out a communications plan in case traditional means fail, getting to know emergency responders, and—above all—practicing.
Crisis Communication via Social Networking
When floods overwhelmed many areas of Tennessee—and severed phone and computer service on the U.S. Navy base in Millington—officials at the Naval Support Activity Mid-South turned to social networking site “Facebook” to help residents and employees learn the latest news, share information, and post questions and answers about the ongoing disaster.
At press time, more than 3,000 “fans” had become members of the site, with multiple messages and links being posted every hour.
“The entire Department of Defense has only recently started to embrace social media as a valid means of communication, recognizing that the younger generation likes to communicate via Twitter, texting, etc.,” NSA-Mid-South spokesman David Crenshaw told The Memphis Daily News. “But we’re the first ones to really implement it the way we have during a crisis.”
At Beacon Capital Partners, an owner and operator of office buildings in certain major cities, part of Donovan’s job is to ensure that all of the company’s properties, personnel and contractors are working on the same narrow bandwidth of appropriate response.
“We started in earnest over five years ago, when we owned the high-profile John Hancock Tower in Boston,” Donovan explains. “We had emergency plans for all of our properties, but we wanted to drive them to higher standards. We created detailed plans for 30 potential events and now run tabletop exercises (a drill of “what if” scenarios) at every property every six to eight months. Our tabletops include all stakeholders, including property teams, fire and safety resources and tenants. It’s not unheard of to have 60 to 80 people per building involved.”
Along the way, Beacon has become the only real estate company in the U.S. to receive the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Safety Act designation, which recognizes anti-terrorism strategies and provides legal liability protections for those who employ them.
“A secondary benefit of running tabletops,” Donovan says, “is that we can repeatedly educate and remind our tenants of their roles and responsibilities. This is a great way to encourage tenants to develop their own plans.”
Ben Comm, director of property management for Cassidy Turley in Washington, DC, is also a proponent of regularly running tabletop exercises, something his firm does every quarter. The lessons learned came in handy this winter, when DC was inundated with three blizzards over the course of two months.
“Weather events can be easier to handle because of advance warning,” remarks Comm, “so we assessed our manpower needs, ramped up our snow equipment supply, and housed critical employees in nearby hotels to ensure they could get to our buildings no matter the road conditions. Tenant communications were vital during the days that the city was virtually shut down, although the closure of the Federal Government helped a great deal, as many companies followed suit. We also monitored snow totals on our roofs; with 45 inches in some areas, it was important to run pound-per-inch assessments and take necessary action.”
“But no matter the situation,” he adds, “you need a strong leader—like the chief engineer or senior property manager—who can organize and lead the team through the situation. You also need to plan for the possibility of losing email or phone service; during the event is not the time to try to figure it out.”
Ed Fallon, vice president of operations, New York region, for Brookfield Properties Corporation, found that having an alternative communications plan became one of September 11’s strongest legacies.
“We managed two properties adjacent to the World Trade Center, and communications were crippled when the twin towers [and cell phone towers] fell,” Fallon says. “Since then, we’ve adopted Blackberries and use a calling tree software system that allows us to reach out to hundreds or even thousands of contacts. It can be activated in multiple ways and provides options that previously weren’t available.”
Building your Backup Plan
Lynn Sugg, vice president and city leader for Cassidy Turley’s operations in Nashville, Tenn., also focused much of her attention on communications when flooding put parts of Nashville under water and when endangered levees in other areas made the threat of power loss a constant.
“Effectively managing this crisis depended enormously on staying in constant contact with city officials and our tenants,” Sugg says. “We regularly talked with the Army Corps of Engineers, emergency management, and even the local television stations so that we could keep our tenant office managers abreast of changing circumstances. Knowing what the city’s emergency team is planning ahead of time proved especially important, particularly in terms of electrical power: If all your systems are running when power is cut, you’re setting yourself up for problems when it’s restored. A building’s sump pump in the elevator pit went out when the power was cut, for example, so when the power was restored, the elevator motors got fried.”
Sugg also stresses the importance of security back-up during power outages, which can be as simple as manual door locks.
As waters receded and areas were re-opened, recovery plans were put into place; although, unfortunately, many buildings did not have separate flood insurance for building contents, and most did not have generators.
“Some areas are in a specified flood plain, where insurance is available for the structure but there was a significant amount of flooding that took place in non-flood plain areas, making flood insurance an impossibility for those particular owners,” Sugg says. “Complicating matters is that other than buildings with tenants that have large call centers or data rooms, the majority do not have generators. Given the impact of this flood, we’re now expecting larger tenants to work generators into their lease renewal negotiations.”
Scott Lenger, director of commercial vertical markets for Trane Commercial Systems, has seen a small minority of management companies utilize back-up systems as part of their contingency planning by prepping their buildings with power connections that enable immediate hookup with an external power source. Doing so means that within hours of a major event, a tractor trailer with generators could back up to a building and in short order get it up and running with emergency power.
“Typically, buildings with critical government facilities, hospitals, hotels that typically house first responders, and some corporate facilities have this level of redundancy built in,” Lenger explains. “Of course, once a property manager has been through some kind of catastrophe, they often look back and say, ‘Whoa, for X amount of money, we could have prepared for this and could have kept our building open for business.’ It’s important to remember that a big aspect of preserving property value is getting ventilation up and running quickly so that you don’t suffer secondary damage from lingering moisture, and trying to obtain that kind of service in the midst of an emergency can be difficult if you haven’t planned for it.”
Other critical contingency planning should include remote HVAC and security monitoring, air intake and evacuation plans, and plans for alternative space should your office need to relocate.
Two final recommendations? First, don’t assume ‘it will never happen to me,’ but also don’t get so bogged down in trying to imagine every possible event that you’re frozen by analysis paralysis.
“An act of terror might never happen to you, but weather could. Or vice versa,” says Fallon. “Either way, you need to be prepared. All emergency planning applies to all emergencies, so put together a plan.”
Second, know that the old adage, “It’s not what you know; it’s who you know,” can play a big role in the success of your plan. Make personal contacts, and nurture them.
“Saying that you’ll call 911 in the event of an emergency is ridiculous,” Donovan stresses. “You need to know exactly who to call. When the first responder runs through your doors and you throw them the keys, wouldn’t it be helpful to know who they are and what they need?”
About the author
Stephanie J. Oppenheimer, APR, formerly the assistant vice president of communications for BOMA International, is principal of Skylite Communications, a freelance writing and editing company based in Falls Church, Va.
