Tag: sprinkler system

Property Managers Responsibility for Emergency Preparedness

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Neighbors getting answers

Neighbors getting important safety answers.

How does your Property Management Company Stack Up When it Comes to Emergency Preparedness?

Do you live in an apartment complex, a mobilehome park, a condo complex, a retirement community, a gated community, or any kind of community with a Home Owners’ Association?

Does your community have a property manager hired by the owner or by the Association?

Or maybe you yourself are a property owner, doing your own managing?

No matter the exact ownership circumstances, it is important to

Include a property manager in your emergency preparedness planning!

Two important outcomes are possible.

  1. You could uncover that you have been making unfounded assumptions about the role and capabilities of the manager to protect residents in an emergency.
  2. Your investigation and follow-up discussions may allow you to improve emergency response for all your neighbors1

Emergency Plan Guide is not a professional property management company, of course, but we have owned rental property, lived under property managers and served on various boards and homeowners’ associations making decisions about most of the topics that follow.

And of course we do not know where you live as you are reading this, so we can’t know the regulations that apply in your state and city.

Still, we understand basic management responsibilities and can pose general questions that EVERY one should be able to answer!

Disaster survival questions for tenants, owners and managers.

Personal experiences give us a place to get started with questions. If you have ever lived in a property with a property manager, consider these:

  1. When you moved in, did you get a list of emergency procedures for the building or for the community? For example, did you receive a map showing the buildings and/or homes (including their addresses), location of fire extinguishers or hydrants, list of local emergency contacts including who to call after-hours, information about evacuation routes, etc.?
  2. Is there any specific info on disaster planning for people with disabilities? Older people with mobility challenges? How about planning for pets?
  3. Has that emergency information been updated regularly?
  4. Do you know where to find the most recent copy of emergency procedures?
  5. Has the community ever practiced an emergency drill or evacuation?
  6. Do you know the location of all the exits from the property? If they are habitually kept locked, do you know who would open them in an emergency?
  7. If you are on the second floor, or higher, do you have an emergency ladder? Are you allowed to practice evacuating?

Multi-story buildings have particular emergency preparedness issues. If you haven’t lived in a multi-story building, you surely know someone who does. Be sure they are asking questions like these . . .

  1. Have you been told/shown where all the stairs are? Do stairs lead up to the roof as well as down to the street? Are doors in stairwells locked?
  2. Do you know where fire alarms and fire extinguishers are located in or outside the building? (We assume you have a fire extinguisher inside your own dwelling.)
  3. Do you know what happens when the fire alarm goes off? For example, what does the elevator do? What happens to interior doors, if anything?
  4. Do you know what happens when power goes out? Again, what happens to elevators, doors, gates?
  5. Are all dwelling units on all floors protected with a sprinkler system?

The 22017 Grenfell Tower fire in London – in which 71 people died — raised the question of sprinklers. And more recently a fire in the Trump Tower in New York – in which 1 person died and 6 firefighters were injured – revealed that its upper floors (exclusive residential apartments) also did not have sprinklers. Moreover, the apartment where the one victim died did not have a working smoke alarm.

Every property manager should be able to answer these questions:

  1. Who makes the decision that there is an emergency? If the manager isn’t available, who makes it?
  2. How are residents alerted or notified about a weather emergency? Can they be notified if power is out?
  3. After a disaster, does the management company maintain a website where updates could be obtained?
  4. What procedures are in place for ongoing communications if the emergency lasts for hours or days? (For ex., a widespread health emergency requiring closure of the pool and clubhouse.)
  5. How would the community fare in a longer-term emergency? What about rent payments, trash collection, security? What about management personnel?
  6. Does the management company store any kind of emergency supplies? How are they rotated, inspected, etc.? Who has a key? How would supplies be distributed?

How to use these emergency preparedness questions.

  • As someone concerned with emergency planning, you can use this list to be sure you haven’t made any assumptions about your community that turn out to be incorrect. In some cases you may be able to come up with alternatives to what look like problems.
  • As a member of a community preparedness group, you can use this list to suggest improvements to your neighbors and to your management company.
  • As a member of an HOA Board, you can use this list to help your group identify and hire the best possible management company for your property!

Again, every community is different, so there is no one-size-fits-all management standard. But property managers play an important role in emergency planning and, in particular, in responding to an emergency. Whether they are prepared or not, people will turn to them for answers.

You may be able to reassure residents and management alike by making sure common questions get answered well before a disaster happens.

Follow through with your own property manager, and share with others who live in communities with managers. This is essential info.

Virginia
Your Emergency Plan Guide team

Addendum: It seems that most property management contracts do NOT include requirements for protecting residents. (I conducted an informal survey online with a group of professionals and received a couple dozen responses.) Nevertheless, as more attention is paid to disaster prevention and emergency response planning, the concept of a “standard of care” needs to be considered. In this case, if most professional management companies in your area are incorporating emergency preparedness education and practices into their services – or at least adding in a budget line item for it — the few that ignore it will stand out as not being up to standard. This could have a legal impact. Certainly, it should have an impact on the company’s ability to win business.

Fire Danger in High-rise Buildings

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High rise fire
Intro: At Emergency Plan Guide, we try to write about subjects we know something about from personal experience. (It helps to be “a mature adult!”)  But until we become paid reality-show stars, some things we have to write about as observers.

The news is often an inspiration. Last week I wrote about hurricanes — though I have never lived through one. This week, it’s a fire in a high-rise.

The closest I’ve been to that is living through a fire on a ferry boat — not exactly the same thing, but certainly some similarities.

The point of all this? My own experience may be limited, and the risks that I face may be limited. But we all will  face a variety of emergencies FOR THE FIRST TIME. I’m convinced that simply being open to ever more more knowledge gives us a better chance of surviving. That’s what keeps me learning and writing.

With that, here’s this week’s offering. 

_________________________________________

The high-rise apartment building fire in London was horrifying. And deadly. When I started this Advisory – 3 days after the fire – the number of people missing and presumed dead had risen to 58. As of today, 2 days later, it is now at 79 missing and presumed dead.

High-rise fires are alarming but infrequent.

High-rise fires are always particularly horrifying. We all picture flames shooting up the sides of buildings, far above the street, and we can imagine the terror of the people trapped inside.

Still, with the exception of terrorist acts, the threat posed by fires in high-rise buildings isn’t as great as that in low buildings.

According to the National Fire Protection Association, in all the structure fires in a year, around 2,600 people die – but only 40 of them are in high-rise building fires.

Moreover, the NFPA says the danger of fire in high-rises is going down.

Why? It’s a function of old buildings being replaced by newer ones.

Modern high-rise buildings have fire-suppression protections that work.

If you’ve read the details about the London fire, you will discover that the 24-story Grenfell Tower did NOT have such protections. According to news reports:

  • Only one stairwell was available for residents.
  • There was no sprinkler system.
  • Recent “upgrades” to the building included a plastic-filled cladding material that was not fire-resistant.

What do you know about the building you are about to enter???

Safety depends on the building codes in effect.

In the United States, national and state codes regulate new construction and, to a certain extent, upgrades or retrofits. Generally, these codes apply to different aspects of the building – some of which we, as consumers, may be aware of, and other that are hidden from sight but just as important.

Outside the U.S., codes and standards may be different. For example, in the case of the London fire, the new cladding would not have been allowed in the U.S. (A visitor to the building wouldn’t have known that. Even the residents of Grenfell Tower, who had requested fire-resistant upgrades, may not have realized that their new cladding did not meet that standard.)

So, whether living, working or traveling, here are some questions to get answered before you stay in a high-rise building.

It’s good practice to answer these every time you enter a high-rise building!

1-Is there a fire alarm or smoke alarm system?

Easy enough to find out. If you don’t see installed alarm buttons, just ask!

2-Is there a fire sprinkler system?

An alarm doesn’t fight a fire!

So, look up and see if you can identify sprinklers. These are the key safety feature – in fact, they have been determined to be 97% effective in suppressing fire. (The other 3% didn’t work because they water supply wasn’t hooked up right, or the system wasn’t properly maintained.)

Don’t see any sprinkler heads? Are they blocked by furniture or decorations? Ask property management if a system has been installed.

This is the very most important feature for high-rise fire safety! No sprinkler? Don’t stay!

(An older building can be retrofitted with a fire sprinkler system. Unfortunately, it costs many times more to put in after the fact that if it had been incorporated into the original building. So, building owners may resist adding systems if the law doesn’t require it.)

3-Where are the fire exits?

Look for signs. Identify more than one exit. Check diagrams of the building so you would know which way to go if you couldn’t see because of darkness or smoke.

4-Where are the stairwells?

Again, note the PLURAL word. Every high-rise building needs more than one set of stairs. Note where stairs are located so if you need to evacuate, and one set of stairs is blocked, you can go down the other. (Remember, in a fire, one stairwell may be reserved for use by fire fighters.)

5-Are there fire doors in the hallways?

Modern buildings include fire doors that close in the case of a fire, keeping it from spreading. Usually, these doors are held open electromagnetically, and if a fire alarm goes off the circuit is broken and the door closes by itself.

Bad sign: Fire doors are blocked so they cannot close.

Again, under normal circumstances you may never notice these doors because they are “hidden” by the décor. However, it is good to know that in an emergency you may come upon a door that you didn’t expect.

6-How would people with a disability be assisted in case of a fire?

While you may see special signs for emergency procedures for people in a wheelchair, etc., it is up to you to figure out how you will handle an emergency.

Other fire safety features to look for, in any building.

1-What is the maximum occupancy?

Overfilled rooms, theaters, restaurants, stadiums, etc. may be more dangerous if there is panic. Be aware of where exits are located, and in an emergency do not automatically head for the door where you came in. Is there a better exit option?

(In my experience it’s fun and valuable to train children on a regular basis to look for multiple exits. As you settle down in movie theater seats, ask, “How many exits do you see? Or, how many ways to do you see that we could get out of here?”)

2-Where are fire extinguishers?

In a commercial building in the U.S., there’s sure to be one not far away!

Usually, local fire codes require that fire extinguishers be installed based on square footage, and they also require that you be able to find one no more than 75 feet away. (“75 feet” is only an example. Specifics may change slightly in a different state and in a different type of building.)

In any case, when you enter a building or room, it’s a good idea to look around to see if you can locate the nearest hand-held extinguisher.

This assumes you know HOW TO USE an extinguisher, of course.

What to do if there is a fire in a high-rise?

Fire experts still say “shelter in place” is the best advice IF THE BUILDING HAS PROPER FIRE SUPPRESSION PROTECTION.

(Stuff towels under the door to block smoke from entering, stay alert for instructions.)

Sprinkler systems have been in use for over 100 years. They provide 24/7 protection, turning on automatically when sprinkler heads reach a certain heat level. Fires can be caught and put out without people even realizing it until later.

Once again, if you plan to visit or stay in a high-rise building without a sprinkler system, think twice. Think three times!  You may want to find another option.

Virginia
Your Emergency Plan Guide Team

Want more information about fires and how to avoid a disaster? Check out these Advisories: