SportsTurf provides current, practical and technical content on issues relevant to sports turf managers, including facilities managers. Most readers are athletic field managers from the professional level through parks and recreation, universities.
Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/183915
Facility&Operations • Emergency Response: Have a safety program in place during and after the storm for trafficking pedestrian sidewalks and roadways blocked from debris and falling trees. • Trafficking: Develop outbound evacuation routes and emergency vehicles routes inbound and outbound. Have areas for airlifts, if necessary and/or feasible. • Crisis Communications: Have a form of communication like cell phones or UHF or VHF two-way radios etc. • Conduct a Business Impact Analysis (BIA): Areas to consider are payroll, equipment rentals, food, water, etc. • Information Technology: One of the most important people to have at your round table discussion is IT. Having a plan in place in case of power loss and know what areas are critical for fully operational systems in case servers go down are crucial to your storm readiness plan. • Incident Management Training: Like anything, practice makes perfect, but it is hard to plan for the unknown, so use all types of scenarios with your plan and grade them on effectiveness and failures to make your team better prepared. Use exercise results to evaluate the overall effectiveness of your plan. DURING THE STORM HTTP://WWW.READY.GOV/BUSINESS Your headquarters for a storm event or also known as an Incident Command System (ICS) is used by public agencies all the time. This system is also effective in these instances and is starting to be used widely in the private sector. At the very least it may not be a bad idea to be familiarizing yourself and your team with its protocols. Not all weather events require activating the ICS; just those that meet the guidelines established by your administration. ICS Checklist: • Point of Contact (POC) or person in charge of operation. • Assess the situation and let POC know if first responders are needed. • In case of emergency, the appointed internal emergency team is in charge of areas until first responders show up. • Notify or verify internal teams, departments, public agencies, regulators, contractors and suppliers have been notified and are on standby. • Appoint others to incident command positions as needed. • Brief staff on current organization protocol and on events as they unfold. • Terminate the response and demobilize resources when the situation has been stabilized and safe for reentry. • Identify and assess hazardous situations and high risk areas until all areas have been cleared internally and/or externally. AFTER THE STORM (ASSESSMENT-CHECKLIST) After the storm passes, assess your damages and log all your property and equipment damages with your facility. Also, log all the man hours it takes to clean up the debris and water damage from the storm. If your governor declares a state of emergency and it is signed by the President, then you may be considered for some relief from FEMA; however, you need to have your ducks in row. • Manage all financial aspects of the incident. • Provide financial and cost analysis information, as requested. • Create accounts for claims and costs; coordinate with logistics. • Track worker time and costs for materials and supplies. • Document claims for damage, liability and injuries. • Notify risk management/insurance to initiate claims reporting. • Provide incurred and forecasted costs at planning meetings. • Provide oversight of financial expenditures, new leases, contracts and assistance agreements to comply with corporate governance. Public Relations checklist: Only state facts that are cleared through upper management and ISC. Develop brief information for use in media briefings. Monitor and forward useful information to the media. FINANCIAL AID STEPS (CHECKLIST) Your sports complex could be reimbursed by FEMA for labor, equipment rental, property damage etc. Here are the ten protocol 34 SportsTurf | October 2013 www.sportsturfonline.com