Emergency Preparedness for Libraries. Julie Todaro
used as a model. I do so because after years of being involved with and witnessing a wide variety of disasters and emergencies with facilities, one of the strongest predictors of success for ensuring that we “come out on the other side of the situation successfully” is preresearch and, more importantly, reliance on vendor relationships.
Why? The realization that few managers think first or even second about identifying what might happen is a sobering one. With the rise of disaster planning content—first focused primarily on saving collections only—a number of other concerns began to surface as asset management naturally expanded to include all or most furniture, fixtures, and equipment. In the last two decades—since 9/11 for sure—institutions have turned their attention to the breadth and depth of prevention, mitigation, and recovery as well as business continuity. And while that content includes extensive information on what needs to happen, I have found that even more valuable is how it happens.
To that end, after one older site had experienced over forty-plus water incidents in a calendar year, I requested an onsite meeting with BELFOR Property Restoration—then I requested that my staff participate in an onsite training originally only designed for our institution’s internal recovery, maintenance, and upkeep individuals. While we found that training helpful in immediate response, following recommendations for best practices for the most recovery as well as identification of unsalvageable resources, we found valuable collateral information such as the following:
• Common definitions and terminology for working with in-house staff
• Common definitions and terminology for working with emergency workers
• Common definitions and terminology for working with insurance companies
• Basic supplies/resources to have on hand
• Simple assessment approaches to determining condition of resources and property
• Immediate behaviors and techniques library staff could safely take to maximize time
• Simple approaches to determining and communicating recovery levels
I reviewed their website post training to find extensive training content on the site through writing instructions, images, and photographs of resources and locations, and techniques for prevention, mitigation, and recovery, and found that this incredibly valuable information not only served to inform me but to educate me on the basics including what do things look like at various stages, how good or how bad can damage be, what can I expect in recovery stages, and—overall—how I could better manage my own incidents (both on site and in other areas (e.g., three floods in my home.)
I was invited to visit their Dallas/Fort Worth area office and recovery center. A daylong visit gave me incredible insight into not only what a recovery expert does but how I should prepare resources for recovery as well as what to expect throughout the process. I learned that most of their work throughout any year is the small project which also defines most of the situations I see.
While any expert recovery service should provide information to the customer, they are unique in their web content, their guided tours, the breadth of their services (fire, smoke, water, pestilence, age-related issues, etc.) and their strong education component which they can take on the road (presentations for conferences or to individual institutions). In addition, they have a training room at their recovery location for training their own staff, additional people involved in recovery, or groups seeking more information, including the following:
• Continuing education classes for insurance and insurance-related professionals (and a national insurance direct repair program)
• Seven prevention and property preparedness sections (tornado, etc.)
• Twenty-four-hour response programs including a mobile phone app
• Services in many countries and thirty-plus states as well as travel to other states for unique services
• Extensive information on fifteen different types of recovery services
• Thirty-four case studies (including a variety of types of libraries) with cases presented in extensive pdfs with color photographs, images, and narratives that move the reader through immediate and weekly updates
• Fifteen videos showing response and recovery not only advertising services but giving individuals valuable preparation information such as size and number of vehicles needed at damaged locations/or nearby, spaces needed for on-site work, and so on
Tours—depending on timing—include recovery environments where visitors and students can visit items (with confidentiality factors of primary concern) to see family bibles, general books, company records, memorabilia, and a wide variety of other objects being handled with care during recovery. My discussions with them also included a taste of their consultation where we talked about the value of recovery and the assessment of value of recovery and their honest approach of “don’t waste money in recovery, rather assess for cost of recovery vs. replacement (or not) and discard.”
So what are the lessons learned about relationships with all vendors?
• Visit their web environment or print/paper to determine who they are and the approach that they take to recovery.
• Seek previous clients in general and—if possible—clients in similar types and sizes of institutions.
• Identify consulting for events to determine viability.
• Seek assessment of spaces for areas of vulnerability.
• Identify insurance support for pre-event strategies for appropriate purchase and assessment for coverage, claims, and recovery.
• Determine their financial guidelines for payment vis-à-vis institutional insurance coverage.
• Identify timelines.
• Identify types and training of workers used for recovery.
• Assess their work in terms of business continuity offered given possible types and levels of events.
Finally, establish recommended ways to maintain information and keep your plans updated given purchases, deselection/weeding, growth or expansion, and resources with maintenance plans, warranties for resources and overall insurance policies.
Location/In Situ
Although institutions typically exist with communities or areas of communities, the best prepared managers are those who spend a great deal of time creating a footprint of their institution in situ or within the context of their overall setting. In addition, this information provides specific recommendations for not only identifying but involving and integrating others in an ongoing, systematic way designed to maintain relationships. Recommendations include the following:
• Identify access to and exit from the footprint including how emergency vehicles would arrive, park, and so on.
• Identify support for emergency vehicles such as fireplugs, energy stations/transformers, call boxes or communication stations, cameras in public spaces, and cameras in private spaces (use and contact information).
• Identify area energy grids to note emergency power outages on maps.
• Identify the footprint of the institution which includes the actual location but surrounding areas used by the institution and areas related within a certain mile radius (transportation hubs, parking used, other support services needed such as food, related-needs for users, etc.).
• Create a communication list (much like a neighborhood block list) with individuals and contact information for quick communication, identification, and communication of issues.
• Prepare contact sheets for area businesses as well as one for your institution with expanded information for contacts and for updated safety information.
• Investigate a “see something, say something” block safety team working with emergency personnel to determine area issues, sex offender registry information, and emergency alarm information