Practical Facilities Tips, News & Advice.
Back to Basics is an article series that highlights important, but possibly overlooked, information facilities management professionals should know. Facilities management professionals should ensure that their facilities are adequately prepared in the event of a power outage, which is usually a sudden loss of power. It is important for them to ensure that employees, vendors, […]
The Michigan Occupational Safety and Health Administration (MIOSHA) issued emergency regulations for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) exposures in the workplace. The regulations include a requirement for remote work, when feasible. Michigan becomes the second state, following Virginia, to issue emergency COVID-19 regulations.
In this day and age, when many companies house much of their critical information and infrastructure online, it’s imperative to plan ahead. What would you and your company do in the event of an emergency or sabotage?
Wildfires can happen at any time, though changes in land use combined with the steady and continuing rise of global temperatures over the past decades have helped create the perfect environmental conditions for them to thrive. To compound the problem, more and more people are living and working in communities where the risks posed by […]
With hurricane season here to stay until the end of November, it’s important to think about how prepared (or unprepared) your workplace is for a disaster. Tornadoes. Fires. Floods. They’re all happening much more frequently than they did decades ago, and they’re dangerous and expensive.
Consider for a moment, what’s your worst-case scenario? Fire? Explosion? Flood? If you’re just thinking of the disaster itself, you’re not thinking broadly enough: the true worst-case scenario is a disaster for which your facility and your workers are completely unprepared.
As facility professionals, we pay close attention to newsworthy workplace disasters. Based on the scale and severity of these incidents, perhaps we assume they could not occur in our own organizations—after all, this is what we work to prevent. But the fact is, disasters can happen anywhere.
It’s important for facility managers to be ready for any emergency, and that includes preparing for weather emergencies. So, when that dreaded alert from the National Weather Service pops up on your computer or phone: “Area Flood Warning” predicting storm activity such as high winds and heavy, sustained rainfall for your area, will your team […]
After a natural disaster, you may be dealing with a lot of debris at your facility, whether it be generated from damage to the buildings themselves or to the property surrounding them—and cleanup is costly and time consuming. The EPA has reissued its debris guide that places stronger emphasis on pre-incident planning for disaster-related waste […]
The best time to reevaluate (or create) your disaster plan is before an emergency occurs. You never know when a disaster will strike and how it will affect your facility. The key is to be prepared, and the best way to be prepared is to periodically review, reevaluate, and appropriately adapt or change your plan.