Make preparedness your business
A natural or man-made disaster can cripple any business – especially in this time of financial trouble. Recovery may take months, even years to occur, and most small and home-based businesses do not have the resources to draw upon to survive the process. What can you do as a business owner to improve your odds of recovery? Now – more than ever – preparation for disasters is essential.
Some basic tips for disaster preparedness include:
- Identify what you need to protect. Your first step in adequately preparing your business for a disaster is to identify what matters most and take steps to address that. For example, if you run a catering business, a power outage may cost you tens of thousands of dollars in lost food. Make sure your insurance will cover that loss, and consider a back-up power source for your refrigeration.
- Develop a specific disaster plan. Map out precisely who will do what if a disaster occurs. Who will be in charge of evacuation or of making certain that important documents and data are safely secured? Designate a meeting spot outside of your business. Share the plan with your employees and keep it up to date.
- Get your insurance in order. This means more than just knowing where your policy is. Specific issues include looking into business interruption insurance, setting up direct deposit for insurance benefits and assigning one person or a special team as a main point of contact for insurance issues. Also, be sure to check your policy carefully so you know exactly what is being covered.
- Consider cash. Even solid insurance coverage will have deductibles. If you can, earmark some cash to pay those deductibles and other expenses. If that's not in the cards, open up a line of credit with your bank for a ready money source.
- Buddy up. The most amenable landlord on earth can do little about office space that's been reduced to ruins. Address that potentially crippling problem by "buddying up" with another business — a non-competitor who's willing to offer a conference room or any available space to help you out. By the same token, if they're the ones taking the hit, make your space available to them.
Pinellas County Economic Development can help your business develop a plan to prepare for potential disasters. Call (727) 453-7200 or visit www.pced.org for more information.
Special needs? Register now!
One of the most heartbreaking experiences during the busy 2004 hurricane season was the number of people with special medical needs calling the Citizens Information Center to ask for evacuation assistance late in the evacuation process. By that time if the storms had hit, it would have been too late to send help. Fortunately, none of the storms greatly affected Pinellas County, but the outcome could have been tragic had the storms not changed course.
Pinellas County has an ongoing partnership with local municipalities to offer shelter and transportation for residents who meet the eligibility requirements. Those with certain medical conditions may be able to stay in special needs shelters.
Please do not wait until there is a threat of evacuation. That may be too late. Register now if you will need special needs evacuation assistance. Local fire departments and the Department of Health will assess each person and contact them directly to get any additional information.
To help citizens with special needs, the Department of Health and the Pinellas County School Board staff special needs shelters with nurses and other medical personnel. Oxygen is available, but citizens should plan on bringing their own medication and any needed special equipment.
Special needs shelters are offered only if you have no other options for sheltering, and you require limited medical assistance. Shelters do not have hospital beds and cannot assist those with acute medical problems.
To register, call Emergency Management at (727) 464-3800, your local fire department or visit www.pinellascounty.org/emergency/specialneeds.htm.
Soffit to me!
Moving further down the roof from the shingles and sheathing, homeowners should take a serious look at their fascia and soffits when planning for hurricane season. That sounds great, but what are the fascia and soffits?
Last month, the E-Lert described how roofs are constructed. Either pre-manufactured trusses or built-in-place rafters create the structure of the roof below the sheathing. The rafters or trusses are connected to the outside wall of the building and continue beyond the walls. This overhang is evident in many older Florida homes, where if you look up at the roofline, you will see what are known as rafter tails. If your roofline has this design, you can monitor the condition of these exposed areas of your roof’s structure.
On newer homes, these rafter tails are covered by a vertical board called a fascia and a board or boards nailed under the rafter tails, making a boxed in, flat-looking area back to the outside wall. This horizontal board is known as the soffit. Soffits can be made of perforated aluminum, vinyl or plywood.
While the fascia and soffits give a finished look to the roofline, they can also hide rot if water can seep through the gaps between the boards. Should a hurricane come calling, the high winds can easily push through any rotten wood in that area, allowing wind-driven rain access to your attic. Another thing to look at is how securely your soffits are attached to your home. If you can reach them from a ladder, push gently on them to see if they bend easily, and if there is any wood blocking behind them. Blocking is a good sign, meaning there is adequate support.
If you have any issues with your soffits or fascia, it’s best to have them repaired as quickly as possible to prevent more problems in the future.
You can also improve your fascia and soffit survivability by running a bead of urethane sealant – available at most home-improvement centers – at the joint of your soffits and the outside wall of your home. It can be messy, but it will improve your home’s survivability and reduce the likelihood that you will have water getting into your attic.
For more information on how to prepare your home to withstand hurricane-force winds, visit the Federal Alliance for Safe Homes’ website at www.flash.org.
When all’s not great...mediate!
The first few days after a storm can be confusing and frightening. And when it comes to dealing with insurance companies, the experience can be frustrating as well. If you have a claim, but believe your insurance company has offered an inappropriate settlement, you can choose state-sponsored mediation. When it comes to insurance mediation, Florida leads the way.
This process is offered through the state Department of Financial Services as an option to address or resolve claims disputes. To participate, the homeowner has to have an unresolved disaster-related residential property service request against the insurance company which is $500.00 or more over their deductible. Commercial, liability, flood and automotive claims are not eligible for this service.
You can request mediation through your insurance company. A state-trained mediator will be present to hear both sides of the case and help the parties arrive at an equitable settlement.
The best part is that mediation costs you nothing – the insurance company is required to bear the cost.
For more insurance tips and suggestions, read the Consumer Guide to Homeowner Insurance produced by the Florida Department of Financial Services. The guide may be obtained by downloading it from the website at www.myfloridacfo.com or by calling the toll free Florida Department of Financial Services Consumer Helpline at 877-MyFLCFO (1-877-693-5236) and asking for a free copy to be mailed to your home.
Storms in History
The Kissimmee Tornado Outbreak - 1998
While it may not seem to be the case, Florida is the most tornado-prone state in the nation. February and March are two of the deadliest months for tornadoes in the state as powerful cold fronts slice through the warmer, more humid air in place over the peninsula.
The deadliest tornado outbreak in the state’s history happened on February 22 and 23, 1998. An exceptionally strong cold front pushed into the state, spawning 12 tornadoes, affecting Lake, Osceola, Seminole and Volusia counties.
The most notable of these storms were two F-3 strength (winds of 158 to 206 mph) twisters which touched down in Kissimmee and near Sanford. The Kissimmee tornado tore a 28-mile-long path causing 25 deaths. The Sanford tornado ran for 16 miles and claimed 13 victims. Ultimately, the series of storms was responsible for 42 deaths through north central Florida.
What made these particular storms so deadly was the fact that they occurred between 10:45 p.m. and 7:45 a.m. – with the killer storms striking between 11:45 p.m. and 5:40 a.m. Many of the victims were home, asleep in their beds when the tornados struck, giving them mere seconds of warning.
This is why it is so important to have a weather alert radio in your home. In the event of a dangerous weather situation, the radio will sound an alarm, giving you the longest possible warning time before the event happens. The radios are available at many home-improvement, grocery and other large retail stores, as well as on the Internet. While these radios can cost more than $30, they are an inexpensive way to improve your chances of surviving a tornado. Be sure to look for a model with Specific Area Message Encoding – or SAME – technology. Enter code 012103 in order to get only Pinellas County weather alerts.
For more information about this deadly tornado outbreak, visit the Wikipedia page at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_Kissimmee_tornado_outbreak.
We take our show on the road
Want to get even more informed about hurricane preparedness? Give Pinellas County’s Speakers Bureau a call at (727) 464-3000. An emergency preparedness expert can make a presentation at your meeting or event, providing valuable information that may save your life. Pinellas County Extension also offers a list of classes on home and yard improvements that can help you be more hurricane ready. For these classes, go to www.pinellascounty.org/events to see if any are being held through the season, or call (727) 582-2100.
What does THAT mean?
Nobody likes to be under pressure, but that’s where we find ourselves every day. The air in our atmosphere may not feel like it has any weight, but it’s bearing on us with a force of about 15 pounds per square inch at sea level. Fortunately, air behaves like a fluid, so it presses on you from the top, sides and bottom – that’s why you are easily able to hold your arm out straight.
The Earth’s atmosphere isn’t a uniform place. There are areas of higher and lower pressure drifting around the globe, and these local pressure variations can have major effects on our weather.
High Pressure: When the local pressure is higher than average, it creates a high pressure area. These are marked on weather maps with a blue capital H. North of the Equator, air spins around these areas clockwise. Since high pressure air sinks, it suppresses cloud development, leading to clear skies. When a high pressure area is nearly directly overhead and strong, it can lead to little wind and poor air quality. Most deserts around the world are in areas of persistent high pressure.
Low Pressure: When the local pressure is lower that average, it creates a low pressure area. These are marked with a red capital L. The air spins counterclockwise in the northern hemisphere and can enhance cloud and storm formation due to rising air. Hurricanes and tropical storms are areas of low pressure. The lower the pressure, the stronger the storm.
Meteorologists measure air pressure using a barometer. Air pressure is typically expressed as inches of mercury (From the old barometers that used glass columns of mercury – much like thermometers) or as milibars.
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