The Fire This Time

One of our properties, a garden-style complex with multiple buildings, sustained a significant fire back in January. More than 30 people were displaced. A firefighter notified me a few minutes after 2 a.m. that this was a significant fire, and I immediately reached out to the superintendent and the property manager, who arrived about 20 minutes later. I was able to work from home, sending out different notifications, coordinating with the fire department to have certain people shelter in place. I also worked with the board and sent notifications to the insurance company and other people in my office. At times like this, time is of the essence.

Planning ahead. I’ve been in property management for about 30 years, I was in law enforcement and emergency services for about 23 years, and I’ve learned that you have to have procedures in place for events like this. We’re very electronically organized so we can have people at a scene — be it a fire, a flood, a hurricane, any of those events — equipped with tablets or laptops, able to immediately resolve issues. It’s all based on protocols that we have implemented and training that we’ve done within the office. We have a handbook with procedures for different scenarios, from the financial side to basic property management items. We also have a training program that we do monthly in the office with our managers, assistant managers and our financial department so they know what to do when emergencies arise.

At the fire in January, the damage was so severe that the fire chief told us we needed to get the building knocked down. We were working on a pool at that location, so we actually had heavy machinery onsite already, which was a godsend. The contractor had an operator onsite by about 6 a.m. to assist with taking the building down.

Priority list. In the aftermath of a disaster, displaced people are management’s top concern. We set up an office onsite for the Red Cross and for people from my office. The Red Cross was very, very helpful, and ultimately people were able to find housing through different agencies as well as local real estate agents.

Next came insurance. We prefer to deal with adjusters that we’re familiar with, that we know are working in the board’s best interest. So we presented two different adjusters to the board; the board interviewed both of them with our assistance and ultimately selected one of the adjusters.

The board interviewed three different builders that we’ve worked with in the past. The one selected got rolling right away, and now we’re waiting for permits to be issued. We’ve been holding weekly virtual meetings, updating as each stage went along. We want to keep everybody informed. You can never over-communicate. 

The importance of being connected. There are two critical things a management company can offer a co-op and condo board in the event of an emergency: being prepared ahead of time, and knowing who to contact when an emergency hits. A manager needs to know who has the right equipment, who has the ability to rebuild a building, and also how to deal with the insurance carriers and adjusters. So the management company needs to have that organizational fortitude, and it needs to have relationships with good, reliable, trustworthy vendors.