When Physical Property Damage Occurs:

After an incident resulting in physical property damage occurs, a proper and thorough site/damage assessment must be performed. The assessment not only determines the extent of the damage, potential recovery time frames and costs, but also ensures the safe and healthful “entry requirements” for personnel going into the damaged environment.

In many cases, a thorough site or damage assessment is not possible immediately 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 for a minimum of 24 to 72 hours. The delays may be due to possible loss of structural integrity, necessary forensic investigation, or existing/potential toxic contamination. It is difficult for organizations to execute their business/service continuity plans when the following questions are not yet answered:

1. What is the severity of the damage?
2. How long will it take to access the environment which houses core business operations, vital records, critical work in progress, and production capabilities?

Companies with delayed access scenarios in their recovery plans have been among the first to recover from disasters. Excellent examples can be found in each of the following disasters:

• Los Angeles First Interstate Bank fire

• Philadelphia Meridian Plaza fire

• New York City World Trade Center bombing

• Oklahoma City bombing

• Chicago downtown flooding

• Midwest, California and Pacific Northwest floods

• Hurricanes Hugo, Andrew, Marilyn and Fran

• Northridge earthquake

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. Meeting with them in advance to discuss such issues as ‘what areas of our building are crucial to our business recovery processes’, can help them work with you in the early stages of responding to the loss. You should pre-qualify credentialed emergency resources who will hopefully be allowed to enter the facility(s) under special municipal escort, (depending upon the severity of the loss), to obtain at least a partial damage assessment of the critical floors and departments.

Pre-Loss Response Contracts

Compile a List of Your Critical Recovery Resources

When you meet with these vendors, you may want to discuss agreements or contracts regarding their potential response to your emergency needs. It is important that these agreements are set up in advance so that all the necessary legal, financial, and in some cases, insurance approvals are in place if and when a loss does occur. Require documented evidence that your vendor has a “business recovery and continuity of operations plan” in place. You do not want their disaster to prevent a response to your needs!

Working with Your Insurance Company

It is important to understand that your insurance company will require extensive documentation regarding the circumstances, evidence and property damage relating to the loss. Take time to have discussions with your insurance carrier and broker. Ask about their philosophy and what their policies are with regard to emergency mitigation measures.

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 to 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.

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 to 72 hours. Ideally, you would be able to clean all of the equipment at the same time, and remove the contaminants, but some factors can delay the complete cleaning process. These factors are:

• Volume of equipment

• Decisions on restoration versus replacement

• Insurance coverage issues

• Re-certification requirements

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. You should consider emergency mitigation procedures, such as the removal of surface contamination and application of corrosion inhibitors. These procedures can buy you the time you need to make the necessary “replace or restore” decisions.

Structural Damage Assessment

It is imperative that a thorough investigation of the structure be performed as quickly as possible by a state licensed structural engineer or a professional engineer, specializing in structural integrity areas. (Comply with your state requirements.)

Structural Damage Due to Water

During the situation created by water infiltration of the freight tunnels and sub-basements of some fifty or more buildings in the Chicago Loop during the April 1992 flood, Mr. Ian R. Chin, SE, AIA of the Chicago firm of Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates, Inc., was contacted by BOMA (Building Owners & Managers Assoc.) to provide assessment recommendations to its affected members.

In his recommendations, Mr. Chin stated, “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.”

Structural Damage Due to Fire

Mr. Chin’s post-fire recommendations include looking for the following structural conditions:

• Distortions in structural columns, beams and slabs

• Fracturing of connections

• Spalling or cracking of concrete members.

“If these conditions exist extensively, material tests should be performed to determine if the fire has affected the strength of the structural materials. 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.”

Hazardous Material Contamination

Depending on the type and level of non-routine contamination found or suspected at the facility, OSHA may require not only special protective clothing and equipment, but also special training and certification in order for an individual to be able to enter the building. Non-routine contamination may include PCBs, asbestos, lead, cadmium, mercury, etc., or any combination of the combustibles and reactives consumed in the fire, explosion or loss scenario.

To safeguard against potential hazards, it is important that your internal or external certified industrial hygienist test for any health, safety and environmental concerns that may exist. Once an in-depth site assessment is performed, samples taken and analyzed, the proper cleaning and decontamination protocols can be identified and performed by your pre-qualified hazardous material decontamination specialists.

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

It may also be necessary to identify items that would require lab packing. Lab packing is the containerization and removal of like hazard classes of materials, such as flammable liquids and corrosives. Profiling and disposal, in compliance with local, state and federal regulations, will then be necessary, as will the determination that the facility 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. 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 addition to determining structural integrity and hazardous material(s) contamination, it is also important to determine if there is routine contamination, resulting from the cause of the loss, such as the by-products of a fire.

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, when 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

Water, associated with floods or fire suppression, can carry contaminants also. Inorganic salts from building materials and atmospheric particulate matter can be deposited on exposed circuit boards. Chilled-water systems often contain glycol, which can adversely affect certain types of paper and magnetic media. The water’s ionic content, acidity, suspended solids, and organic content should always be analyzed.

Mold and Mildew

In addition, where you have had standing water or moist, humid conditions in a facility for more than 24 to 48 hours, you must be concerned about the development and growth of mold and mildew spores. This affects the structure, HVAC systems, and critical contents such as documents and magnetic media, and can also produce sick building syndrome. Highly elevated humidity and temperature levels (for example, over 50% relative humidity and over 75 degrees F) in moist humid conditions can produce an environment conducive to mold and mildew growth.

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.

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.

This article may not be reprinted, reproduced or distributed in part, or in total, without the express written consent of the author. © Strohl Systems 1999 All Rights Reserved.