Important Damage / Site Assessment

It is difficult for organizations to execute their business/service continuity plans when they have no idea how severe the damage is, or how long it will be before they can have access to the environment which houses their core business operations, their vital records, critical work in progress and production capabilities.

After an incident resulting in physical property damage occurs, a proper and thorough site/damage assessment must be performed, not only to determine the extent of the damage, potential recovery time frames and costs, but to ensure the safe and healthful entry requirements for personnel entering into the damaged environment. In many cases, a thorough site or damage assessment is not immediately possible after the fire has been put out, the water contained, or the environment stabilized. Access to and assessment of the facility and its contents may be delayed due to the possible loss of structural integrity, necessary forensic investigation, or existing or potential toxic contamination.

In losses such as the Los Angeles First Interstate Bank fire, the Philadelphia Meridian Plaza fire, the New York City World Trade Center and the Oklahoma City bombing, the Chicago downtown flooding, the Midwest, California and Pacific Northwest floods, Hurricane Hugo andrew, Marilyn and Fran and the Northridge earthquake, those companies, who positioned and actually incorporated delayed access scenarios in to their recovery plans, were among the first to recover.

Pre-loss communication with the municipal authorities in your city, such as the Fire Department, or local emergency management office is an excellent recovery strategy. Notifying them in advance, as to what areas of your building are crucial to your business recovery processes, can help them work with you in the early stages of responding to the loss. Pre-qualify credentialed emergency resources who will possibly be allowed to enter the facility(s), (depending upon the severity of the loss), under special municipal escort to obtain at least a partial damage assessment of the critical floors and departments. These resources could be drawn from your pre-determined general contractor, restoration specialist or recovery management resource with whom you have a pre-established agreement or contract, thereby allowing them to respond immediately to your needs.

PRE-LOSS RESPONSE CONTRACTS

EMERGENCY MITIGATION MEASURES

Once the affected site is approved for entry and the site/damage assessment begins, emergency mitigation measures should also be put in place - within the first 24 - 48 hours if possible - to help reduce or control the damage. Emergency restoration procedures, such as removal of standing water, facility dehumidification, corrosion control and smoke removal are crucial loss recovery factors in reducing damage to critical components of the facility. These include the mechanical and electrical controls, as well as contents including telecommunication, electronic data processing and manufacturing equipment, vital records, raw stock and finished products.

Electronics, as well as finished products, should always be carefully examined and, if necessary, tested by experienced technicians to make sure they still meet the manufacturer’s original operating and performance specifications, as well as general cosmetic appearance.  For example, if electronic equipment has suffered thermal damage, as evidenced by melted plastic components, or been exposed to heat far beyond the manufacturer’s recommendations, it normally cannot be restored and re-certified. However, if equipment has been exposed to just smoke from the fire for a relatively short time, there may be very little damage, except for the corrosive components of the particulate.

If this equipment remains in a moist, humid environment, severe corrosion can occur within 48 - 72 hours. Ideally, you would be able to clean all of the equipment at the same time and remove the contaminants, but factors such as the volume of equipment, decisions on restoration Vs replacement, insurance coverage issues and re-certification requirements can delay the complete cleaning process.

The proper testing, performed by your pre-qualified specialists, must be done as quickly as possible to determine the quantitative, as well as the qualitative corrosivity. Emergency mitigation procedures, such as the removal of surface contamination and application of corrosion inhibitors, which can buy you the time you need to make the necessary replace or restore decisions, should be considered.

STRUCTURAL DAMAGE ASSESSMENT

In his recommendations, Mr. Chin states that “Many of the buildings affected by water infiltration have been exposed by this situation to loading conditions that they have never seen before and possibly were not designed to withstand.....After the water is pumped out, all structural walls, beams and columns should be investigated to determine if water-related forces have adversely affected the structural capacity and serviceability of building elements. When existing conditions have been evaluated, the structural engineer should design repairs to provide immediate intervention for stabilization as needed and to provide long-term measures to address distress conditions. Structural intervention must be coordinated with measures to address architectural, mechanical, electrical and environmental concerns in areas affected by water.”

Mr. Chin tells me that after a fire, ”...structural conditions to look for include: distortions in structural columns, beams and slabs; fracturing of connections, spalling of concrete members and cracking of concrete members. If these conditions exist extensively, then material tests should be performed to determine if the strength of the structural materials has been affected by the fire. Surveys of columns and beams should be performed to determine the extent of their distortions and to evaluate the affect of the distortion on the load carrying capacity of the structural members.”

It is obvious that you will want to include a qualified structural or professional engineer on your emergency response damage assessment team so that you can have accurate information as quickly as possible to begin the repair, restoration or replacement. If your organization does not own the affected facility your business is housed in, you will want to make sure the building owner or their representative has addressed this requirement in their disaster recovery or business/service continuity plan.

HAZARDOUS MATERIAL CONTAMINATION

Pre-determined specialists should include, at a minimum, a certified industrial hygienist, occupational physician, toxicologist, microbiologist, geologist, remediation and bio-remediation specialists and OSHA certified hazardous materials technicians.

It may also be necessary, depending upon what was in the facility, to identify those items that would require lab packing, which is the containerization and removal of like hazard classes of materials, such as all flammable liquids and all corrosives -- and then have that process performed. Profiling and disposal in compliance with local, state and federal regulations will then be necessary, as will the determination that the facility(s) has been returned to the proper criteria of clean by the local or state officials. Evidence or suspicion of hazardous contamination at your site will normally necessitate a more detailed assessment and the decontamination protocols and timeframe to make your facility tenable again can be lengthy and costly. Therefore, you must anticipate this possibility when identifying your recovery scenarios in your recovery and continuity plans.

FIRE DAMAGE ASSESSMENT

In the event of fire heat and soot are generated and areas of the building you assume may be unaffected directly from the fire, can still suffer damage. The initial damage assessment should always address both indirect as well as direct fire-damage areas. Contamination, such as fire combustion by-products, may lie hidden behind the obvious physical damage to the structure. These by-products are locked into the soot which condenses on all cool surfaces. Poly Vinyl Chloride (PVC) plastic, for example, when heated, generates hydrogen chloride gas. This gas, combined with water, forms hydrochloric acid, a very corrosive chemical.

Other building materials can form sulfates and nitrates. A common cushion material, polyurethane foam, yields hydrogen cyanide when burned. Even fire-extinguishing chemicals can generate such by-products as hydrochloric acid, hydrofluoric acid and hydrogen bromide. Since each fire leaves its own unique chemical fingerprint in the soot, the chemical components are determined by what burned, in what quantities and under what conditions.

WATER - RESIDUAL CHEMICAL DAMAGE

During the Chicago flood, for example, the floodwaters in the basements of most buildings were basically clean from contamination. In some instances however, there were some hydrocarbons in the form of oils floating on the surface, which had come from the mechanical room, waste oil storage or fuel oil tanks. Since this was a flood and not a hazardous materials incident, the Certified Industrial Hygienist used a Toxic/ Combustible/ Oxygen Deficiency Meter upon entering the areas of concern. This tells if there is a presence of toxic or combustible gases and if there is sufficient oxygen present to eliminate the necessity of supplied air.

Silt was tested for contaminants such as bacteria, heavy metals, pesticides, PCBs and hydrocarbons, etc., and submitted to a qualified laboratory for analysis. In some cases, metals, including lead, chrome, cadmium, barium and traces of mercury were found. Based upon the tests and analysis results, the proper cleaning protocols were employed.

Another site assessment consideration at the affected buildings and which can often occur in similar situations, was the potential presence and loss of, maintenance chemicals, oils, paints, solvents, housekeeping chemicals and pesticides, etc., which could have been released into the flood waters.

When these and other unknown chemicals were found in various locations in these sub-basements, specific procedures had to be followed. They involved taking a complete physical inventory of each container. Simultaneously, product segregation, according to Department of Transportation (DOT) Hazard Class specifications, was performed by certified, trained, hazardous material technicians.

MOLD AND MILDEW

Mold growth will typically be visual around baseboards, on ceiling tiles, light fixtures, supply registers, upholstery and porous surfaces such as paper documents. Restoration specialist, Jim McGovern of V&M Restoration discussed two types of mold growth with me, specifically active growth and dormant growth. "A wipe sample will provide you with evidence of CFU's (colony forming units). Samples, taken from different areas and contents in the facility, should be sent to a qualified laboratory, specializing in health and environmental issues. Their analysis will tell you the type and volume of mold spores growing. Active growth can be killed by using special EPA recognized biocides.

Dormant spores are more difficult to deal with because when the humidity and temperature levels in the facility return to normal ranges, e.g. 50% relative humidity and 75 degrees F ambient temperature, active growth will become dormant. In moist, humid conditions, when the temperature and humidity levels rise again, the dormant spores can again become active. There are varied approaches of source removal for dormant spores."

A proper and thorough damage assessment, performed by a Certified Industrial Hygienist and decontamination of the HVAC systems is critical in ensuring that the building will be returned to the proper criteria of clean for re-occupancy. With today's technology, there is hardly ever a need to replace the ductwork. Rather you can apply the proper EPA recognized biocide through various fogging and cleaning applications. In compliance with your local and state regulations, follow up clearance sampling is necessary as the final step in returning the facility to a safe and healthful condition.

VITAL RECORDS RECOVERY

Peter Waters, a retired Conservation Officer with the United States Library of Congress, provides some very valuable information to us, "In any weather, mold will appear within 48 hours in unventilated areas made warm and humid by recent fire in adjacent parts of the building. Every effort should be made to reduce high temperatures and vent the areas as soon as the water has receded or been pumped out. Water-soaked materials must be kept as cool as possibly by good air circulation until they can be stabilized.

As long as books are tightly shelved, mold will develop only on the outer edges of the bindings. Thus, no attempt should be made in these conditions to separate books and fan them open. Archival files, packed closely together on shelves in cardboard boxes, or in metal fire cabinets, are the least affected. As a general rule, damp books, located in warm and humid areas, without ventilation, will be subject to rapid mold growth. Archival files, which have not been disturbed, will not be attacked so quickly by mold. As they begin to dry after removal from the water, however, both the bindings and the edges of books, will be quickly attacked by mold, especially when in warm, unventilated areas.

A different problem exists for books printed on coated stock, since, if allowed to dry in this condition, the leaves will permanently fuse together. Coated papers must not be permitted to begin drying until each volume can be dealt with under carefully controlled conditions."

A blast freezing or cold storage resource is also vital to your plan. Having a freezer trailer at the damage site, equipped with a diesel-powered refrigeration system, capable of 0°F, is recommended.

In many cases, immediate damage assessment or restoration is not possible. Freezing and storing documents can buy you time to finalize arrangements for proper recovery procedures. Although freezing itself is not a drying method - and does not kill mold - if definitely controls its growth if done properly. Certain procedures must be completed prior to freezing to avoid additional damage. These procedures may include washing away accumulated mud, sewage and dirt. In addition, when removing wet documents from file cabinets or shelving, do not attempt to pull them apart while wet. Remove all documents in blocks, if possible, so you do not increase deterioration. Boxes should be labeled as precisely as possible. A master inventory should always be created and bar-coding systems can be helpful in tracking the items as they move from one location and process to another.

Equally important are the special health and safety, cleaning and handling protocols which must be established before restoration begins. These protocols are based on the type of damage and debris affecting the documents and media, as well as their surrounding environment. During flooding, for example, sewage backup normally occurs. The typhoid bacteria can be present in sewage and therefore your qualified resources will need to institute the proper health and safety procedures.

As you pre-plan for vital records recovery, just as you pre-qualify all other resources, research the track record of your vendors who will be retrieving, possibly relocating and restoring your information and critical media. Document how the media will be transported to and stored in the freeze-drying chambers or off-site cleaning and storage location. Determine in advance not only the recovery costs, but the accessibility you will or will not have to your records while they are off-site.

A well designed and maintained site and damage assessment plan that includes pre-loss site safety audits, along with disaster avoidance, mitigation and good loss control and waste management practices should be an integral part of an organization’s business and service continuity planning effort.

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