Lessons from a Disaster Zone

EVENT OVERVIEW

On June 17, 2014, at approximately 5:20 p.m., a tornado touched down in the Central Ontario community of Essa Township. The EF2-rated tornado damaged more than 100 houses, lifting the roofs off some and throwing debris into others.

The affected houses were primarily located in a residential subdivision between two parallel streets. Amazingly, just across the street from severely damaged houses, the houses were in pristine or near-pristine condition.

RESPONSE

Essa Township declared a state of emergency that very evening and police closed the site to public access. A team of workers from the township and various emergency services reached the site shortly after the incident, working late into the night to assess the extent of the damage, place unsafe building orders and evacuate residents from affected houses.

Utility companies worked to shut off power and gas to the affected houses, a process that took some time. Meanwhile, insurance companies were working to take inventory of insured houses in the area and assign teams to handle related claims, arrange access for their own engineers and provide any required information to their clients.

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By the next day, utility shutdown was complete and the site in question was ready for a large-scale inspection by insurance adjusters, engineers and building officials.

At a township meeting on the morning of June 21, attended by adjusters and engineers to outline safety issues and details of the large-scale inspection, a system was implemented to assess all affected houses for safety. The township had earlier set up an emergency command post on the most affected street, where documentation on each house in the disaster zone was kept to maintain records of all inspections.

Professional engineers were to be accompanied by a building inspector and to categorize the houses into one of three groups:

• Category 1: fit for occupancy;

• Category 2: minor temporary work required, which allows removal of contents, but no occupancy at present; and

• Category 3: building is unfit for occupancy without major work.

Safety was paramount in this process. Protocol prevented residents from entering unsafe buildings, while the goal was to provide rapid re-occupancy to residents of houses determined to be safe.

Once the inspection was completed, a demolition permit was issued on site with the fees waived. This permit allowed contractors to seal off the house and commence the temporary repairs specified by the engineer.

A sticker was also placed on the door of each unit, with a simple colour code to correspond to the damage category. This was a simple yet effective way to communicate important information, and enabled the police to monitor the situation and ensure that only qualified persons entered unsafe buildings.

Once the initial safety assessment was completed, the damaged house was turned over to the insurance adjusters, who could then schedule further inspection to develop a scope of work, arrange clean-up and minor repairs through restoration contractors, or arrange for utilities to be reconnected and for occupancy to be reinstated.

ON THE GROUND

Early on June 21, a team of six Giffin Koerth employees attended the disaster zone, where police had already secured the area and were permitting only emergency service vehicles and approved contractors on site. The team inspected 33 houses to assign a damage category.

Prior to inspection, Giffin Koerth engineers had developed a specific inspection protocol, which was strictly followed no matter how structurally sound a house appeared. This ensured a consistent evaluation process and result.

Observed damage in inspected houses ranged from missing shingles to punctured walls and windows, completely missing roof structures or shifted walls. A number of houses sustained significant damage, requiring demolition down to the foundation.

Many of the affected houses were semi-detached or link-style houses, separated from one another by demising walls that served as fire separations between the houses. Since a fire separation functions in both directions, inspecting just one side is not enough to ensure integrity and re-instate occupancy.

As adjacent units often had different insurers, an individual engineer was unable to access both sides of the fire separation since, in most cases, each insurer had retained its own engineer. This placed the onus on the building department to review inspection notes and reports before removing unsafe building orders on houses with demising walls.

Several homeowners expressed concern that their foundations had been affected by the tornado. However, the forces exerted by the wind would not be expected to cause minor damage, such as cracking to foundation walls.

As is often the case following a major event, some homeowners were more critical about the appearance of their property, identifying cracks that in many cases clearly predated the incident event.

LESSONS LEARNED

While the disaster recovery is ongoing, and will likely not be complete for months, the initial response was highly effective. The Giffin Koerth team noticed a number of processes that could have run more smoothly with additional planning. The lack of established processes speaks to the need for a standardized set of guidelines to follow in the event of a similar catastrophe.

The Ontario Building Officials Association is planning to develop such a procedure, which will be of great future benefit to local municipal authorities.

Below are some lessons learned that may prove helpful for insurance professionals dealing with future disasters.

Safety gear

Many of the insurance personnel who attended the secured disaster area were not prepared to enter a potentially dangerous site. Safety boots, hard hats and reflective vests must be considered mandatory gear for any individuals attending such scenes, which are akin to very disorganized construction sites.

Response overkill

Giffin Koerth was initially retained to inspect substantially fewer houses than it ultimately did. Excess personnel were brought to the site in anticipation that additional work would likely be required.

It was understood that work needed to be completed quickly given the need for our clients (insurers) to get insureds back into their houses as soon as possible. The “response overkill” proved extremely effective as the team was able to assist all initial client requests, as well as the many more that materialized.

This approach is recommended for all companies responding to such events, including insurers.

Fire separations

Some of the most significant confusion involved fire separations, which are a life safety element and must be verified intact before re-occupancy of either house can be granted. As the same engineer was often unable to inspect both sides of a fire separation, separate house inspections had to be documented and compared. This process was time-consuming and introduced the potential for error.

In future emergency work, houses with shared demising walls should be identified prior to inspection. Special assessment instructions should be given to the engineers and a second colour coded sticker placed on the door once the inspection has been completed.

This simple process would reduce time and confusion while allowing more transparent inspections
. Even better would be for insurers to retain the same engineering firm for attached houses.

Access

Some delays occurred in obtaining access to the affected houses, as homeowners were reluctant to hand over keys to field adjusters. Once the field adjusters obtained the keys, they had to be in several places at once to give access to contractors, engineers and building officials.

A system for handling keys, such as handing them to the building officials to be stored with the documentation for each house, or placing lock boxes on each house prior to the inspection date, would save time and reduce confusion.

Building permit authorizations

Once the inspections were carried out, many building permits were required. Engineers are often asked to apply for building permits on behalf of the homeowner. Bringing authorization forms on the date of inspection would help, as many homeowners could sign them on site, reducing delays.

Managing the process

With so many moving parts, it was difficult to keep track of who was responsible for what. With many Cat field adjusters responding on site and then passing off claims to local adjusters following the initial inspection, trying to get the proper documentation to or from the correct adjuster proved problematic.

This process was most successful when establishing a single project manager, who could keep track of all moving parts and ensure constant communication was maintained, to handle all of an insurer’s tornado claims.

As insureds in disaster scenarios have literally just had their lives turned upside down, the better prepared the insurer is to respond, the happier the client will be with their insurer.

LOOKING FORWARD

While there is still significant work ahead to restore the damaged houses, the initial response to the tornado by the Township of Essa and the involved insurers has been extremely positive. Significantly, no injuries were reported as a result of the clean-up and inspection efforts.

Several challenges were identified, and lessons were learned. The hope is that through documenting this entire process, other communities, and responding agencies and insurers, will be able to build upon the success in the Township of Essa.