Communication continued with the board members as well as with all residents to keep them informed of the progress being made. This fire started well after most of the residents had gone to work. Main office personnel gave priority to ensuring that communication to residents occurred in a consistent, timely fashion, not to mention processing all the incoming calls from residents and their families that inevitably started occupying the office phone lines. Although the crisis was given priority, being in the business of customer service, the main office personnel still needed to respond to the usual daily tasks and the needs of the residents at other buildings.

Thanks to the wonderful work of the fire department, the fire was quickly controlled and extinguished. As we did a building “walk through” with the Fire Commander and the disaster relief firm, we found that the building had not suffered as much damage as initially thought.

At the beginning, the fire department stated that occupancy would probably not be possible for 3-4 days, if the residents were lucky. Occupation after a fire requires a Certification of Occupancy by a municipality’s fire department. Building systems must all be operational and the building must be safe for residents. Water needs to be extracted, especially from the elevator shafts; electricity must be on for emergency lighting; front door security and intercom systems needs to be functioning; broken doors and windows need to be boarded up and secured. This building also has an underground garage, which had to be pumped dry. Before the fire was out, plans were underway for the coordination of elevator repairs, window and door board-ups, insurance company site visits for the building as well as for the residents’ adjusters, water extraction, and getting all these companies and vendors to the site.

To complicate matters, while dealing with everything that had to be taken care of, management had to deal with the opportunistic vendors and phony residents trying to take advantage of others’ misfortune. Site security was immediately set up to keep all unauthorized parties out.

A well-coordinated effort by all the contractors managed to get the emergency repairs completed by 5:00 PM that same day! When the Fire Commander walked the building, he approved the work, issued a restricted certificate of occupancy and said that he had never seen a team work so well together to get a project repaired so quickly. The tension and stress of the day seemed minor compared to the safety and security for most of the residents and their homes. It took many months and approximately $1.5 million to completely repair the building and damaged units, but that’s another story. “Baptism by fire” allowed all unaffected residents to be home for dinner that night, courtesy of successful emergency management planning and execution.

KEAY & COSTELLO, P.C. ATTORNEYS AT LAW

Providing complete, cost-effective representation of condominiums and all common interest communities

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Tom Engblom CMCA AMS PCAM VP/Regional Account Executive 312-209-2623 Toll Free: 866-800-4656, ext. 7498 tom.engblom@mutualofomahabank.com

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