Preparing for a natural disaster that may or may not occur isn’t easy for anyone. But it’s doubly difficult for self-storage owner-operators because it’s not just your facility on the line – your tenants’ belongings are, too. And most importantly, everyone’s safety. That’s why a detailed action plan is so important, both before and after the event.Whether you’re facing facility fires or wildfires, floods, mudslides, snowstorms, tornadoes, earthquakes, hurricanes or other disasters, read on for ways you can prepare and protect your facility as well as the steps to take to rapidly restore your facility after the damage is done. In both cases, Janus International now offers a complete maintenance program, for minor and major fixes, to fortify your facility.
Part One: Before a disaster occurs
Prepare your facility. The first step is to ensure that your facility is built to withstand a disaster, beginning with the materials used for the structure itself. Reinforced concrete is an ideal way to fortify your building against the punishment of flooding, hurricanes, earthquakes and fires. And concrete requires less overall maintenance and may extend your facility's longevity and long-term viability.
Another area that can be beefed up to prepare for the unexpected is your doors. Hurricane doors are wind-load rated, heavy-duty doors designed specifically to protect buildings against various wind-related environmental hazards, from tropical storms and hurricanes to wind damage and airborne debris. A hurricane door is designed with wind locks, weather seals, heavy-duty guide assemblies, and other components to increase the door's structural integrity. With this additional support, hurricane doors are equipped to resist bowing, buckling and misalignment when faced with certain extreme pressures and impacts. At Janus, we have several wind-load rated doors that offer protection for your facility. Get our ultimate guide to hurricane doors, and learn three big reasons to invest in them.
Keep up with regular maintenance. One of the best ways to mitigate damage at your facility, especially from water, is to ensure that it’s properly maintained. A regular maintenance schedule reassures that any issues can be caught early and addressed immediately, potentially preventing larger problems later. This regular upkeep could include maintenance like ensuring all drains are working properly and monitoring the seals of all doors and windows.
And at Janus International, we now offer top experts in the self-storage business to provide facility maintenance services that are the perfect way to keep your site in ideal condition – and better prepared if disaster should strike. With proper mitigative and predictive measures, you can rest easier knowing you’re doing all you can to protect your facility.
Formulate a disaster preparation plan. It’s crucial to nail down a detailed plan on how to react when disaster strikes – but the time to do this is before the event, not after. Detailed preparation should be a normal part of your operating procedures so that it’s ingrained in your facility's safety and security initiatives.
In many natural disaster scenarios, proper communication is vital to keep employees and tenants safe and aware of the situation. Formulate a communication plan for the latest developments. For instance, if you lose power, update multiple channels from website updates to social media, email, phone calls, and even texting, since people may be in various states of power or communication loss.
You may also want to back up the valuable content from your computers onto an external hard drive. Some disaster scenarios, such as facility fires, cannot be predicted, so securing your valuable information as a regular part of your operating procedures may prevent the loss of crucial data in any situation. In addition, in the case of any oncoming disaster that includes water, move computers and important paper files to a higher floor (if possible) to secure your data. In fact, making digital copies of the most important paper files is good operating procedure to further ensure all vital information and data is secure.
Other steps that can make your life easier in the event of a disaster include securing a backup generator if you lose power at your facility. Although a generator won’t solve all your power issues, in most cases it should allow your security systems and gate operations to continue and ensure that items needing climate control can remain safe and sound.
The last step in formulating a plan is to think ahead and organize contact information for any company you may need to reach in the event of a natural disaster—from your insurance company to utilities such as gas, power and water.
Take a deep breath. A catastrophic scenario has many moving parts, so when natural disasters hit home and affect you and your facility, it’s understandable to feel helpless and overwhelmed. But when you’ve already tackled a preparedness and action plan and enlisted the help of vendors like Janus International for equipment like our wind-load rated hurricane doors and complete facility maintenance services, you can feel confident knowing that you’ve fortified your facility, and a plan is in place. Now’s the time to execute it.
Assess the situation. First, the type of disaster will affect your plan of action. Is it a fire confined to your facility alone? If so, securing the needed assistance will be easier, considering the agencies you need to enlist for help will be running normally. If it’s a disaster that affects your overall area, such as a tropical storm or hurricane, other agencies could be in distress as well, which means everyone is competing for limited resources. This is why disaster preparedness is so important – vital items, including food, fuel and supplies, will be difficult, if not impossible, to find.
It's also important to check on your employees during times of distress. Is everyone safe? Have they been evacuated? Are their homes and families out of harm’s way? This is exactly why a predetermined communication plan is vital in times like these. Belongings can be replaced, but the safety of people affected is paramount.
Assessing the extent of the damage to your facility can be a truly daunting task, but the sooner you can tackle it will help you begin to gather resources from agencies who can help you get back on your feet. A good first step is determining what areas are a total loss, what areas seem salvageable, and what areas are safe to occupy. This is also the time to rope off, cover up or board up areas that could be further damaged by the elements or are too unstable to approach. Tenants will understandably want to check on their possessions and do whatever they need to secure their belongings, but their safety is of the utmost importance at this crucial time.
Document everything. When a disaster occurs, it’s vitally important to reach out to your insurance company as soon as possible to begin the process of assessing and addressing the level of damage to your facility. This is the time to fill out incident reports and photograph or record the extent of the damage. No detail is too small, as it’s better to “over-document” than leave out important information. Contacting your insurance company as soon as possible ensures they have ample notice to conduct any investigations needed before cleanup begins.
Be there for your tenants. After a natural disaster, your tenants will be anxious to see if their property is intact and protected. The first step is to have updated contact information for every tenant and inform them if their property has been damaged and whether they need to stay away from the facility due to unsafe conditions. A written notice is a great option to relay this information since it could also require the tenant to notify their insurance company to proceed.
Once it has been deemed safe for tenants to access the facility, some steps can be taken to make this difficult time a bit easier for everyone involved. First, show compassion for your tenants. Of course, your entire facility may have been compromised, and the time it will take to get back on your feet may still be unknown; however, your tenants may have lost valuable family heirlooms, sentimental treasures or irreplaceable items, and that’s a devastating feeling. Showing that you’re there for them can go a long way in managing everyone’s distress.
And that’s not all. With Janus International’s breadth of solutions and services, you can provide tenants with a rapid response to repair any damage. In addition to our Facilitate division for repairs and facility maintenance services, our R3 division helps you restore, rebuild and replace everything from storage unit doors to ceilings and entire units at your facility. And our relocatable self-storage units can be on-site and ready to rent between 30 and 45 days from ordering, so you’re operational more quickly after a natural disaster. You’ll also want our BETCO professionals on your team when the damage hits, bringing more than 40 years in the self-storage industry to refurbish and repair any level of damage to your roof or other areas of your storage facility. This is especially important to avoid water penetration that leads to far more damage down the road.
Other tangible ways to make the situation a bit more manageable for tenants include providing dumpsters and other cleanup items as they begin to sift through their units and even offering bottles of water to reinforce that you’re there in their time of need.
Keep in mind that most self-storage leases have language to protect the facility owner from tenant claims related to property loss; however, tenants will occasionally attempt to sue the facility. A smart solution for owners in this situation is customer goods legal liability insurance, which offers protection from tenant claims arising from damage to their property. It also covers the costs associated with defending against any lawsuits that arise from damage or loss claims, for instance, court costs or any court-awarded tenant payments.
Prepare. Prevent. Protect.
The self-storage business is about more than smart technology, innovation and ROI; it also includes preparation for any sort of disaster. And that’s why a detailed action plan is so important, both before and after the event. Following these 7 steps helps you properly prepare your facility, possibly prevent unnecessary damage and, most importantly, protect employees and customers from harm.
Learn more about how to fortify your facility for natural disasters by downloading our free maintenance plan.
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Other Helpful Links
Disaster Assistance.gov | 1.800.621.3362
Janus International Group 24/7 Customer Support | 833-257-0240
