As I prepare to write this article about handling contents during a CAT loss flood situation, I am watching the State of California experience some of the worst flooding in its history. Entire neighborhoods have been evacuated and homes have been swallowed by over flowing rivers and spillways.
Disaster sites are a natural breeding ground for health and safety concerns, including severe injuries to fingers and hands. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reports that 70 percent of workers who injure their hands were not wearing work gloves during the accident.
In mid-December, those of us in the Australian state of Victoria believed it was going to be a dry and hot summer. After a very hot couple of days in a heat wave in Melbourne, we were asking, “where is our summer rain?”
Lots of big headlines to cover in this restoration roundup, including the hottest year on record, a costly year for disasters in Canada, mold and asbestos lawsuits, and more!
Take a moment to think back through 2016. What changed in your life this year? What changes did you notice in the community, state, and even world around you? What headlines come to mind?
Managed properly, you can be a hero but if you forget for even a minute that you are dealing with emotionally frayed people, watch out. All the anger they feel due to their loss will be focused on you like a laser beam.
Usually mold testing is done with an inspection plus air and/or tape sampling. In recent years, our industry has seen a new method of mold testing – Environmental Relative Moldiness Index (ERMI) and sometimes it’s cousin HERTSMI-2.