RandyL

First - Best of Luck over the next few days. The pictures we are seeing on the Weather Channel and on-line have made me stop and count my blessings and say a pray for everyone involved.

In any disaster situation, fire, flood, etc. one of the critical things to focus on is your business must survive to help your customers. I have dealt with a catastrophe fair at a facility years ago. the first thing that we did was to hire 24 hour security. Depending on the total impact on your facility, there may be a period of time that customers should not be allow on the site for safety reasons.

I would remove all rental agreements and the computer from the office. You need to check the rental agreements and insurance addendum's for completeness.

If you do have dramatic damage, and I pray that you don't, getting your insurance adjuster to the facility as quickly as possible will be key. photograph photograph the situation with the time/date stamp visible on the image. if your office is damaged consider bring in a rental RV to serve as a temporary office. you can have the telephone company transfer your office line to a cell number temporary. This will guarantee you that you are not missing phone calls.

You may be forced to take action at the site before every customer shows up especially if they are dealing with damage at home or live out of town. You may have to hire independent insurance adjustor's to do a preliminary evaluation of someone's unit so that you can move forward with corrective action. Your local insurance agent can help direct you to a company to help in this area.

Finally a couple of thoughts about dealing with the media. Again in a worst case situation, you are forced to comment to the media about the situation. Every comment you make should be about your customers and your concern for them. Do let them try to get you into talking about insurance liability issues and finger pointing. Your public image is all about the customer. Remember that a reporter or person with a press credential has no right to accessing your property. If you don't want them filming or do a live remote from inside your property talking to some customer who has lost everything - you can prevent them from coming onto eh property by explaining that No One Comes On The Site Except Our Customers for everyone's security. Don't let your managers slip by talking to a reporter either. You have to take the posture that they are not your friend and you don't owe them anything. The focus on the customer as you are already doing with your sandbagging efforts already proves that you are looking out for them.

Hope that you and your facility are protected.

MisterJim444

__________________
Learning Never Ends