RHONDA DEMENO: Welcome to the WTW Senior Advisor Podcast. My name is Rhonda DeMeno, and I'm thrilled to be your host for today's podcast. WTW Senior Advisor Podcast is intended to bring you firsthand information on trends and hot topics facing the senior living industry. This episode is the second episode to our emergency preparedness and disaster recovery podcast. The risk consultants and national response specialists will walk the listener today through the essentials of business continuity, disaster plan, and emergency shutdown procedures. The risk control consultants and national response specialists will address fire protection and mitigation, utility management, and evacuation plans. I'm thrilled to introduce you to our panelists, David Gluckman, who is the WTW risk consultant. Thank you, David, for attending and joining us again today.
DAVID GLUCKMAN: You're welcome. My pleasure. Good afternoon.
RHONDA DEMENO: And I also have Cal McCarty, Vice President, National Commercial Sales & Response ServiceMaster Brands. Welcome, Cal.
CAL MCCARTY: Thank you, Rhonda. It's great to be here.
RHONDA DEMENO: And I also have Wade Miller, President, OneRally Point. Welcome, Wade.
WADE MILLER: Thank you, Rhonda. Thanks for having me back.
RHONDA DEMENO: These three panelists were on our first episode, but they had so much information to share with us. We invited them back to talk more about what occurs during the storm. So, we had our previous episode where we talked about preparation strategies. So, my first question will go to Cal. Cal, what have you found to be a successful communication process during a disaster recovery crisis for building owners and their contractors and insurance groups?
CAL MCCARTY: It can vary on the natural disaster, but I think a one-point communication, whichever is best for you. So, I think I've seen everything from end-of-day wrap-up meetings with a member of each part of the recovery team. I've seen printed-out documents such as an email or delivered status of what happened today. I think a good point so you assure communication issues overall is a good wrap-up point at the of the day, however that might be. You run into all kinds of communication problems on recovery efforts, whether it be down cell phones or folks that need to communicate not being on site. We've used two-way radios to-- if you remember the Nextel’s-- to digital text, all the way to phone calls. So, I think overall, plan on at least having an "end of the day" wrap-up type of communication so everybody is up to speed on where that day went and where you're going the next final day.
RHONDA DEMENO: That is really good advice. Wade, do you have anything you want to add to Cal's comments?
WADE MILLER: With Cal says, great. I'd also add that in the beginning of the day to just have a game plan with the whole team and make sure everybody knows what's going on because people internally usually have to communicate something back up to corporate levels or to maybe to resident family members. So, make sure there's a way for people to have enough information to know the progress and what's expected each day and what's today's game plan. So, when they do get asked questions, they have information to give to others who are needing to know.
RHONDA DEMENO: David, anything you want to address there in that question?
DAVID GLUCKMAN: I do. And I have two thoughts that come to my mind when you pose this question, Rhonda. The first being, years ago, organizations for getting the message out to various associates, employees, and stakeholders and staff used to use a call tree where I would literally pick up the phone and call Cal. And once I got in touch with Cal, he would pick up his phone and call Wade, and then he would call somebody else, and goes on and on and on down the list. Boy, have things changed to the point where now there's automated processes that do that, software, and other ways of doing it, or a reverse 911 system or more appropriately called a mass notification system. So, it's getting easier and easier to be able to have a bona fide communication process in place.
And the other being especially when it comes with people who need to get in touch with contractors and insurers and all those other stakeholders is making sure that they still have somewhere a written document that has phone numbers because we're all in tune of having speed dial on our phone. And if we don't have our phones like Cal mentioned, or they're not working, or, I don't know of person's phone number, I just call them by voice command, "Call Bill." Well, if we don't know that phone number and you don't have that luxury of a phone with you or your phone, then what are you going to do? So sometimes those simple things are overlooked. And when it comes to a successful communication process, boy, you want to be able to do everything you can to make it as smooth as possible, because if you need help, you really want to be able to get in touch with the people you need.
RHONDA DEMENO: Really good response, David. I remember those days where we had a communication tree and so we've come a long way now with the mass communication systems. And the ways we go about communicating today are certainly a lot different than they were even several years ago. Cal, can you share some important aspects of why data access and how important it is and how data can assist in managing the emergency operations plan?
CAL MCCARTY: Data is a broad topic when it comes to recovery, but it could be simple as communication with phone numbers or knowing everything about the property, what data is available on that, or data from a communications standpoint like we talked about. The biggest thing is knowing data on the property and communicating what you're finding. So one thing would be, day 1, say, of a recovery in a water situation, a flood, is communicating to folks like Wade, folks like our chief of command, like we talked about in the first episode, how wet a building is or what the percentage of moisture is in a building. Communicating that out. And not only starting a point where this is where we are right now but communicating where that data is heading day 2, day 3, in progressing towards having an asset back online.
Communicating all the data of recovery is the true key point, all the way to phone numbers. That's considered data, having all that stuff centralized so you can communicate effectively. But overall, it's really communicating what you're finding in the first part of recovery and communicating where you're heading in the progression of it throughout the end.
RHONDA DEMENO: Oh, Wade, do you have any other comments on that?
WADE MILLER: Yeah, because I've seen Cal's team in action before. And what's nice, at least in these large-scale disasters, is they'll have a satellite communication link somehow. So, if your cell and Wi-Fi systems are down, you can get out. And let's say another thing to consider is just having some redundancy backing up of data that you're gathering because you're gathering data like we talked about in the last episode a little bit on preparing for downstream liability or preparing for future things that happen towards the end of a loss as you're storing things in a redundant place so you can get it back up to your network. So, you're having data. If your access is down, what do you do to back it up? David mentioned some great points, but I think Cal will have a system to help link through a satellite, which is really extremely useful when everything else is down.
RHONDA DEMENO: So, can you explain the importance of a centralized crisis management system?
WADE MILLER: Sure. So going back to our last episode again, the SOPs, you should have this set up like who's in charge of what. So it's very important to any vendor, whether it's Cal, whether it's myself, whether it's the local vendors that are helping out to know who's making what decisions because the hardest thing for a vendor is to have, say, somebody from the operations, give one instruction, somebody from the risk, give a different instruction, somebody from the asset or construction give yet a different instruction. And those things happen, is know who on the client side, who on your side that is going to make what decisions. So, we know where the partitions lie and who needs to answer what questions. And if something isn't clear, who do you go to get that cleared up as soon as possible so that we don't have people, essentially energies being spent doing different things? We want to be in concert as much as we can.
RHONDA DEMENO: So that ties into, Wade, the next question, talking about communication backup plans. So, what should senior living communities do to ensure they have a communication backup plan?
WADE MILLER: For me, at least, the way I'm looking at the backup is you get those partitions, who's deciding what needs to be done. But those people also have other job duties, other things going on in their life that they're not always available. Who's the next in line backup so that decisions can be made? And whatever critical decision doesn't languish because nobody has the authority to make such a decision. So, know where that is so there aren't gaps in that communication chain. The other part really goes back to what David said is have these lists. If your electronics are down, know how to get in touch with people some other way.
RHONDA DEMENO: Now, that's a really good point. Clinician always had an incident escalation grid. So, I knew when something happened who was our point person. At what point do I communicate? And to whom do I communicate and report to? So, Cal, did you have anything else?
CAL MCCARTY: No, I think you guys covered it. Just making sure that you know what plan A is for communication and plan B and even plan C, and being able to adapt to it is the most important thing.
RHONDA DEMENO: And David, anything you wanted to share?
DAVID GLUCKMAN: Some of the mass notification systems are technology-based, meaning there may be hardware or software that's residing in or on your particular applications, in your building or in your data center or in your server room, whatever the case may be. So like anything else, as part of your IT disaster recovery plan, you want to make sure that there's plans in that to be able to get those systems back up and running as quickly as possible, especially if you're so dependent upon that, where that might be one of the first applications that need to be recovered. It's so critical to your operations and to your recovery strategies.
RHONDA DEMENO: That's so true. So, David, it seems that disasters come in all types and different times of the year. What do you think are some of the key points that should be included in a community's process, and where do they need to be adaptable?
DAVID GLUCKMAN: Thanks, Rhonda. That's a great question. And when it comes to the planning process, what you really want to take is an all-hazards approach. That's really the terminology. So, while you really don't think about building a plan around a particular event, you want it so that your plan is going to be flexible so that it can adapt to whatever the event may be. Now, with that into consideration, obviously, there's going to be times based on, let's say, your geography that, yes, if I'm in South Florida, I need to focus on the probability of a hurricane as opposed to a blizzard. I mean, that's just pretty obvious.
Because you also know that it's certain times of the year certain events are going to be more prevalent. Like it seems right now, we're in the heart of a very, very bad tornado season. And even though tornadoes can happen at any time of the year, there are times of the year where they're more possible than others. So, we know that's between June and November. If we're in a hurricane-prone area, we need to focus on that. So there's definitely certain times of the year where, based on your geographical location and based on your business needs, that certain events are going to happen and may have a bigger impact to you at a certain different time of the year, even though theoretically you want to be prepared for everything at all times.
RHONDA DEMENO: Yeah. So that all-hazards approach really helps to make things pretty seamless and ensure that you're covering all those specific disasters that you have a high probability based on your geographic location. So, I'm going to pivot now to talk about documentation. Documentation is always so critical. So, Wade, how does a good documentation process help in the recovery?
DAVID GLUCKMAN: Let me answer. If I wanted to get a quick tag on to what David just said, because I also wanted to make sure people were thinking they overlay one those-- like his all-hazards definition. But what if you have to have a full evacuation of your building, a partial evacuation of your building, or something where we have to shuffle people around to do certain work or critical part of your building's down, let's say a kitchen? That you apply these preparations to these different scenarios so you know how you would respond there.
But getting to the documentation process is, like we talked before, you're looking ahead, you're documenting to help you in the midst of things. So, these are little things like, what do we have to do for tomorrow? What helps my schedule right now? Am I anticipating because I have a good schedule in place and now, I can anticipate when a building inspector or an industrial hygienist clearance visit needs to come and take place so that you keep as good a continuity and fluidity in your recovery as you can.
And also, that the documentations-- you're looking forward what are the last things I have to answer to close out a claim, to close out lender requirements, to close out internal requirements? Am I building backwards to-- what's the final thing I have to document for that going along the way I'm stacking that up so all I have to do is verify and validate versus try to find it?
RHONDA DEMENO: Really important information. Cal, do you have anything to add about the documentation process where you've seen it really help in the recovery?
CAL MCCARTY: Yeah, of course. When it comes to documentation, the different ways to document. So being able to have different technologies to provide documentation, we use stuff like DocuSketch. It is a new and upcoming technology that we use to provide pictures and 3D walkthroughs versus what used to be 1,000 pictures on a cell phone. Being able to provide documentation from-- we've written it down on paper last second, we used high-end technology like DocuSketch or Matterport. We've used drone technology. So, I think being able to bring everything you can to a recovery effort with thought that you're going to be able to use all that documentation, there's never enough of it.
So being able to use all that documentation, having the best technology possible, and then being able to adjust and go down to writing it on a cocktail napkin if you have to. But just getting documentation to the right people like we talked about in incident command, that's the most important thing. By being ready to be all things for your client from a technology standpoint and being able to adjust all the way down to written documentation, showing what your efforts are and showing where you are in progression.
RHONDA DEMENO: Really good information. So, Cal, how does documentation play an important aspect of the beneficiary insurance settlement?
CAL MCCARTY: It all comes down really to that. So, in the end, we're working for our end user client, we're working with the consultant like Wade. In the end, it's going to come down to the beneficiary receiving an insurance payment to make them whole again, to get their asset back online. Both from an operational standpoint, but from a monetary loss standpoint, too. And if we do x, y, and z, we need to have the right documentation and support to show that the beneficiary deserves that payment in the end.
So, without the right documentation, it's not the old days where an insurance company is just going to say, OK, you recover this, you did this, and then it cost this much. Here you go. They're going to want to know, OK, for this effort, it costs this much. And we need to reimburse you for this. But show us how you got there, why you did what you did. All about the proper documentation, getting that to our end user client or to our consultant partners like Wade to get the proper beneficiary payment back in the end.
RHONDA DEMENO: OK. Great. I'm going to pivot now to David. David, can you share some effective loss prevention and engineering control methods?
DAVID GLUCKMAN: Absolutely. I can think of two things that come to mind and the first being preventive maintenance. We want to make sure that we're making sure that all of our buildings and equipment and everything that we use and would need to prepare for or mitigate an event is in working condition and is in working order. Do you have a building system in place or an automated way of getting work orders done so that if somebody sees something and it needs to be fixed or repaired, it gets taken care of as quickly as possible before the event actually happens?
And from an engineering standpoint, we can design and build and do things to harden a building or facility to prevent things from happening. For example, if you're in a flood zone, well, there's ways to harden the structure from an engineering standpoint that would hopefully reduce the severity of a flood as well as other things. Do we need to put a new roof on the building because the lifespan of our existing roof is at the end? So maybe we want to do something above and beyond local code because the building code may be the minimum standard from a true risk management or loss prevention standpoint. We want to make it so that it's above and beyond that-- extra fasteners, better securement of the flashing, and on and on. So, there's no doubt we can certainly engineer and design things hopefully to withstand just about any event.
RHONDA DEMENO: Great feedback there. Wade, do you any comments on that, on engineering and risk control methods that you think would be helpful for our audience?
WADE MILLER: Yeah, sure. Beyond what David just said, which is all great information, one thing that I see a lot is the way people track ACM or Asbestos Containing Material in their buildings. It's something that there's still a federal law that has to be complied with and most contractors will not do a lot of the demolition without knowing that it's clear of the ACM. So if you're doing any major remodels, it probably behooves you to just take some tests, some samples-- they don't cost that much-- and have a hygienist or somebody qualified to take it, have it on record, keep a record in a database of what you have because a lot of times that can speed you up a day or two on getting demolition done in a building, which usually has an accelerated effect on the build back later. Sometimes a couple days saved on demolition can save you a week or two on the whole cycle because of just the domino effect of what happens. So, I think that's something else to keep in mind.
RHONDA DEMENO: So, I have a question for the group, and I'll start with David. What are some of the best practices for workflow because we know our clients are always very concerned about cash flow? So, what are some of the best practices for workflow getting settlements quicker and freeing up that cash flow? David.
DAVID GLUCKMAN: Well, in our last session, we talked about an incident command system. And one of the command staff positions is finance and administration. So as part of an incident system or incident management system, really the approach is to be able to document and make sure that you're able to capture all the expenses that you may incur during the particular event because know that things are just going to go very quickly as far as trying to recover cash and also cash that needs to be spent.
And also, if you have a procedure in place where some organizations say, OK, if it's over a certain dollar amount, I need to get a requisition, I need to get a purchase order. Because some organizations may not accept or agree to do any work until they know they're going to get paid ahead of time. So, if you have that normal work routine as part of just your regular procedures, is that something that needs to be done during the event? Or is it something that as an organization you've made a conscious decision to say, look, we're in an emergency situation, we're just going to have to have an open checkbook until we're able to get funds recovered? Because it's a matter of survival.
RHONDA DEMENO: OK. Very, very good information. So, the next question.
WADE MILLER: Hey, Rhonda, do you mind if I add something to what David said?
RHONDA DEMENO: No, please do.
WADE MILLER: This is Wade. I was thinking, too, if you have a dedicated adjuster, which is helpful, is working with them, especially if you're on a very large loss as you can set up ways to get advanced payments from the insurance carrier along the way, which helps the cash flow. So, a company doesn't have to front all of it for very long. And I think companies like Cal's appreciate that, too, because you start getting at least some cash flow going on early on these large losses, especially the large ones that take a long time for full recovery. So that's another part to think about which helps keeping everything moving a little more fluidly.
RHONDA DEMENO: Really good points. Unfortunately, Cal had to leave our conversation for today, but we're going to continue to move on to our next question. And this question goes to you, Wade. Can you walk us through a post-storm assessment and the importance of a post-storm assessment?
WADE MILLER: Sure. So post-storm assessment would be going through, looking at, one, you're doing your punch walk, essentially to make sure all the work was done properly. But you're taking what's going to become part of this-- I think the whole process should be, is what lessons are you learning from this? What did we make here that not only helps this facility or this building in particular but are the things we need to learn for other buildings that could have this same or similar impacts happen? Is that you're taking notes of this. We've mentioned things earlier today in the prior episode of drains and gutters being cleared, but it's other things like roof assessments, fire panels. Is there anything it looks like it's going to be vulnerable for the next time around that you want to take note of and be ready for?
Sometimes it's landscaping. It's strange little things, like over the years, mulch builds up around planters around the front, and pretty soon you have a pitch back in where now water too gets trapped and flows back towards the building instead of away. So, what are drainage plans looking like? There are a lot of little things that you can take note of while you now have everything fresh in your mind. And people attentive to it come up with an action plan that saves you from as much of need for damage recovery in the future.
RHONDA DEMENO: So, Wade, do you have a particular case study with a timeline that ties into that post-storm assessment or any particular--
WADE MILLER: Yeah. It's funny you say that. All those things I brought up really did come from just thinking of different things that we've walked through, like the drainage plains, where after cleaning out drains, it was getting an action plan together with our client to say, let's go through these other buildings that have similar designs and similar types of plumbing, drainage plumbing to do these checks and then to go through any place that has berms or mulch build-up or things like that. Let's take a look and make sure that they haven't covered up sprinkler heads, that they haven't set up ways where now the downspout from the drain hits the backside of a berm and just all these things get cleared out.
And you realize that because ground movement and landscaping things over the years sometimes changes the way this building was designed to drain water in the first place. It seemed like any time you have any type of damage that water becomes part of it, whether it's an earthquake and sprinkler pipes break, whether it's a fire and the sprinklers go off. Not to mention all the other, just rather flood and hurricane and storm damages. Water is involved in a lot of this. So where does water flow? How does it get out? What do you learn from this? Safety and security, it's fresh in your mind, you're taking notes.
RHONDA DEMENO: That's a really good point. Even like with a Texas deep freeze, I know there were instances where senior living communities, their pipes burst and there ended up being quite a bit of water damage and even some cases of Legionella down the road. So, David, do you have any case studies where you were involved?
DAVID GLUCKMAN: Touching upon what Wade said as far as the post-storm assessment. First, you definitely, absolutely, without a doubt want to do an after-action report, a critique, a post-storm assessment, whatever terminology you want to use. But the gist of it is, everybody gets together as a group. They have their plans in place, whether it be their IT disaster recovery plan, their emergency response plan, their business continuity plan.
And they look and see what went well. What happened during the event that worked as we wanted to? And what happened during the event that maybe didn't go so great as planned? And go through that and discuss it as a team and then come up with ideas and concepts like, in the next month, we definitely want to revise this section to include these points because we fell short. We didn't hit the mark. It didn't perform as we wanted it to. Because like I've said in the past, no plan is going to be perfect. There's always going to be something that pops up that you didn't think of. That's just the way it works.
But as far as the mitigation strategies, I think it's just knowing that if we're running into a certain time of year where the probability an event is more frequent, we have a process in place to do everything we can to try to mitigate it. There's going to be situations where we just certainly can't prevent an event from happening. If an EF3 tornado wants to come through, there's nothing you can do to stop that. But if you have cedars in place to do everything you can to mitigate it, whether it be engineering design, whether it be preventive maintenance, that's one thing that will try to keep you a step ahead.
RHONDA DEMENO: Very well said. Very well said. So, I think we covered quite a bit of ground on our episode 2 on, some of those strategies that are so important to consider during the actual storm event tornado. So, this concludes our episode for today. I really want to thank David. Thank you, David, very much for attending our podcast today.
DAVID GLUCKMAN: Thank you for having me, Rhonda.
RHONDA DEMENO: And Wade, thank you very much for attending. Your input's always very valued and I'm sure our clients really appreciated the information you shared today.
WADE MILLER: Of course. Thanks for having me, Rhonda.
RHONDA DEMENO: So, this concludes our episode 2 of our Emergency Preparedness Podcast. Please listen in to our episode number 3 and thank you very much for attending our podcast today.
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