National Preparedness Month
National Preparedness Month
September is designated “National Preparedness Month” by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) an agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security.
FEMA’s Ready Campaign, a public education outreach campaign, provides information to help the general public, businesses, and communities prepare for and respond to emergencies, including natural disasters.
This year’s theme is “Don’t Wait. Communicate. Make Your Emergency Plan Today.” The campaign urges individuals, families, and businesses to take all necessary steps to develop a practical response plan in the event of emergency.
For business owners, the current campaign underscores the importance of documenting their business operations, property locations, and equipment inventories; backing up business-critical information; and having a trained response team in place. How quickly a business is able to get back to business after an emergency or natural disaster may depend upon the emergency planning and preparation conducted before the event occurs.
Landlords must prepare an inclusive emergency plan for business continuity and the safety and security of tenants. The plan must address a wide range of issues, some of which are unique to rental housing in general, some of which are specific to properties, and some of which must attempt to cover natural disasters and local outages.
There are various types of rental emergency situations that could be potentially dangerous to residents or other individuals, and/or cause potential damage to business property. Experience with renters over the years has made many landlords familiar with Murphy’s Law – what can go wrong – will. This type of real life data can be useful for analysis and evaluation of rental operations and its lessons incorporated into the preparedness plan. The data can identify areas where stronger controls or more communication is needed to lessen a potential risk and perhaps avoid a future emergency situation. The landlord’s lease agreement and written rental policies can be strengthened and provide additional reinforcement and instruction of what to do in problem situations.
Without prior thought and planning for handling emergency situations a landlord may incur liability or charges of negligence if his response is inadequate or untimely. Even with the best plans, emergencies can be costly in resource dollars, time, and efforts. Trying to prepare while the emergency is happening is too little, too late, and too costly.
What does an emergency preparedness plan actually do? An adequate plan can serve a dual purpose. It becomes a landlord’s business preparedness plan and a rental emergency response plan. By analysis, it documents the current business operations, while evaluation of risks helps to project scenarios and outcomes that could be mitigated through directed efforts. The plan addresses those events deemed feasible for the business at hand (natural disasters, property maintenance) but allows for assumptions of unexpected events. It becomes a plan for what you know and a guide for what you hope will never happen.
The detail and complexity of a landlord’s emergency plan is relative to the complexity of his business operations. An independent landlord with a single rental unit may develop his plan in a much different manner than an owner with multiple properties and/or multi-family housing units.
Landlording is a demanding business with multiple issues vying for attention. Problems can arise at any time on any day. Focus is needed to define and clarify situations demanding immediate response. Communication is essential to determine the issue and what response is appropriate. As a business owner, a landlord must be prepared to handle many contingencies with a wide range of possible outcomes. How well a landlord supports his business needs, emergency or not, may depend upon risk assessment and the planning and preparation conducted in advance of a direct event. Proactive and preventative measures will better protect tenant welfare and property investment than hindsight.
A landlord’s preparedness plan’s goal is to help protect people and property in an emergency. Many times it is the tenant who first identifies the risk and reports the emergency. Time is of the essence in handling emergencies. The responder’s first action can have significant effect on the outcome. In the case of the tenant being the first alert, the tenant must know what to do according to risk assessment and the landlord’s policies.
To that end there are certain basic elements in rental policies and clearly in an emergency preparedness plan that can help mitigate a potentially damaging event. A critical first priority is the element of communication.
Tenants must know how to contact the landlord and when to contact the landlord. In return the landlord must know how to contact his tenants. Both the landlord and the tenants need telephone
numbers for emergency community services , i.e. local fire, police, hospitals, poison control, ambulance, utility services, etc.
However, the definition of an emergency and the urgency of response may differ by landlord or tenant according to the first report. As part of tenant move-in orientation and as a practical matter, tenants and landlords should have mutual understanding of what constitutes an emergency. Natural disasters usually require little explanation but property emergencies can include a broad category of structural, mechanical, or other systems that may or may not require urgent attention. The emergency plan should provide examples of such property emergencies with instructions as to who to call first and when to call the landlord. When eminent danger is present, there should be no hesitation to call the 911 emergency number and then calling the landlord.
By definition an emergency is a serious, unexpected, potentially dangerous situation requiring immediate action. As examples, criminal activity, domestic violence, fire, gas leak, flooding due to plumbing failure, furnace malfunction, electrical outage, or sewer backup are emergencies. While serious enough and requiring repair, issues such as slow drains, leaky faucets, or garbage disposal adjustment can be scheduled and fixed during business hours.
As a proactive preventative measure during a move-in orientation session or the move-in inspection, the landlord should provide the tenant with instructions and location of water and gas shut off valves, circuit breakers, fire extinguishers, smoke alarms, hot water heaters, or other safety or utility equipment.
In multi-family housing tenants should be instructed on the location of emergency exits and nearest sheltering locations.
The landlord should make sure the tenant has the necessary 24/7 information to contact the landlord or his designated representative in the event of an emergency. As part of the plan for business continuity, a landlord will need to designate his own emergency contact in the event that the landlord is unavailable or out of town when the emergency situation arises. The designated contact must be willing and available to accept the responsibility and must understand the basics of the business and have access to tenant and contractor information. An emergency plan will be of benefit to the designated representative since it will contain details of business operations and contact numbers.
Landlord contact information should also be readily available to emergency personnel or governmental agencies to facilitate assistance or for keyed access to other areas or equipment. As a reminder keys and other business equipment should be organized, secured, and clearly marked to location.
The emergency plan should also contain the contact numbers for those vendors and contractors who can be called upon for emergency repairs. Your designated emergency business operations contact should have ready access to needed numbers and services for when you were not available to conduct business.
As part of the planning for emergency response, a landlord must understand the legal obligations under most states’ landlord-tenant statutes regarding the warranty of habitability. Landlords are required to offer and maintain leased premises in a safe and sanitary condition fit for human habitation for the duration of the lease. Habitable conditions include essential services. If an emergency results in disruption, damage, or destruction of property or services which could threaten the health, safety, or well-being of tenants, the landlord and tenant have certain obligations by statute and lease agreement regarding legal rights for repairs or termination of the lease.
The business continuity plan requires adequate insurance protections. Periodic reviews of insurance coverages should be conducted to ensure there is sufficient business coverage. During tenant orientation and as part of rental policy tenants should be reminded that the landlord’s insurance policies do not cover possessions of the tenant in the event of natural disaster, damage or theft and recommend that tenants obtain insurance protection of their own.
In summary, the landlord’s emergency plan is a toolkit to prepare for and mitigate harmful events by bringing adequate response to critical needs in a timely and effective manner.