Planning for Disaster: The Importance of Emergency Procedures

By Christopher Nicosia, CMCA, AMS, MM – Operations Manager

You’re sitting in your living room when your cell phone makes that alarming noise that accompanies an urgent message from a governmental agency, “Hurricane Approaching, Make Preparations Now!”.  What do you do?  You are the Board President and have 1,000 homes and a clubhouse that are all in nature’s destructive path.  What should you do first?  You have retention basins that can overflow during significant rain fall events.  You have a Clubhouse with pool furniture, screens, pretty planters and pergola covers that could blow away.  You have homes with people on vacation and lots of furniture on their patios.  What to do...what to do?!?!

This is just one example of why an emergency plan is so vital to the operation of a community.  A fundamental responsibility of an association, through its governing board and management (if applicable), is to assess and mitigate risk whenever possible.  Specifically, it is essential to identify areas that are vulnerable to damage, that could cause damage, or pose an injury risk or worse and determine a way to minimize the possible negative effects.  Whether it is securing pool furniture, removing screens from windows in the Clubhouse, draining down irrigation ponds and retention basins to allow for flood water mitigation or educating homeowners on proper planning practices and home maintenance, an emergency plan is a comprehensive approach to prepare for, and respond to, a wide variety of emergency conditions and situations.

So what risks are you looking for?  Well, that depends on the scope of your responsibility.  A condominium association may have more risk to assess and mitigate than a single family home development.  A community with a large Clubhouse may have a greater scope of risk than a community that only has a pool.  It is important to understand the scope of your responsibility as delineated by the Association’s governing documents.  Once you understand your responsibilities, you can better assess your risk. 

To identify risk, it is important to understand what various cause and effect relationships can be exacerbated by natural and man-made disasters.  For instance, if a community’s storm drain system ties into retention basins directly adjacent to homes, what is the path of least resistance for that water during a hurricane?  Will the rain water collected in the basin overflow and, if so, which direction will it flow?  Is said retention basin part of a network of basins or does it overflow to a wetland?  Does the wetland run downhill to a stream that borders neighboring properties?  The cause and effect here is – significant water could flood the association’s property or potentially flood neighboring properties downstream in the event of a significant rainfall event.  As part of an emergency plan, what solution mitigates this risk?  Perhaps the Association could use large pumps to draw down retention basin levels ahead of a storm to create additional capacity to prevent overflow.  Each risk requires a detailed assessment and then a practical approach to mitigate it.

It is very important with emergency planning to keep the K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Stupid) Principle tantamount.  In an emergency, there are significant strains on existing resources and even greater stress on you – the person responsible for managing the emergency.  Overly complex plans will only lead to failure as it may be nearly impossible to execute a difficult plan in adverse conditions.  Instead, it is important to make a clear and easy to follow plan and do as much of the preparation necessary ahead of an emergency so execution during an event is easy and requires little additional resources or thought.

Included in every emergency management plan should be an evacuation plan of buildings and a vehicular traffic management plan to balance traffic across all available exits, keeping in mind the municipal street capacities the community feeds.  Additionally, plans should have a monetary allowance (emergency spending authorization) in the event the entire Board is not readily available to authorize spending for things like additional security, emergency repairs, etc.  Communication protocols should be defined to ensure streamlined and timely communication within your community as well as with municipal, county, state, and if necessary, federal agencies.  Keeping in touch with local government and communicating all relevant information to homeowners is essential to maintaining order and ensures available resources are directed to the community when needed.   Finally, an emergency plan must prepare all stakeholders and include information for individuals to plan – information on disaster preparedness from the American Red Cross or FEMA are good to include.  Homeowners should be encouraged to make individual plans with their neighbors – the Association cannot address all of its responsibilities and those of the individual homeowners...it needs everyone’s help!

In closing, Emergency Plans are becoming not only important tools for communities in the shadows of disaster, but also a requirement by government agencies of associations that meet certain population and infrastructure thresholds.  All associations should consult with their local and county government officials to determine if an emergency plan is required for their community and what is required to be included.  While this article provides a primer for the construct of an emergency plan, it is important to understand what is required for your community and what meets the needs of your homeowners and the government agencies that have jurisdiction in your area.   Regardless of governmental requirements, proper planning is rarely a negative and having a plan for your community, regardless of size, can help make an emergency situation easier to manage. ###

Christopher Nicosia is the Operations Manager at Prime Management, Inc.  He has nearly 15 years experience in association management and consulting, is a Certified Manager of Community Associations, an Association Management Specialist and has undergraduate and graduate degrees in business and management.  Mr. Nicosia can be reached at (609) 693-0090 or cnicosia@primemanagementinc.com.  Visit Prime Management, Inc. online at www.primemanagementinc.com.