Navigating Post-Storm Recovery: How to Safeguard Your Vacation Rental for the Future
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[00:00:00] You're listening to this week's episode of the Vacation Rental Business in Today's World Podcast. You're about to start transforming your business and life with the information found here. We interview some of the greatest and most influential minds in the vacation, short term rental industry, and supporting businesses.
The information found here is a combination of brain science, You're listening to this week's episode of the Vacation Rental Business in Today's World Podcast. short term Transformational thinking, safety and loss prevention, and vacation, short term rental knowledge and experiences all rolled into one to help you and your business to achieve levels you never thought possible.
I am glad you are here. And now please welcome your host, Eric Thibodeau. Good morning, Catherine. How are you doing? Good, Eric. How are you? Great. Thank you to, uh, Let's see you from you. Yes. Yes. It's been a minute, but [00:01:00] I'm always, always enjoy getting together and chatting and reconnecting. Yeah, hopefully sounds good on my end.
All right, we'll give it a shot. So, yeah, so it's been a while and, uh, we had hurricane, uh, Helene and hurricane Milton and you're in Florida and how are you doing? That's that's the most important thing right off the bat. Yeah. Well, I feel like okay is not the right word anymore. You get a lot of people that say, I'm so glad you're okay.
And it's such a loaded statement because, um, it's, it's a lot to take in emotionally for, you know, everything you're seeing and the people you feel for. And, um, I think there's very few people that sustained no damage. Um, our damage is certainly not as significant as, as others, but, but we're good. Um, you know, all we, you know, We made it okay, and people evacuated to our house because it's higher and drier and safer and we had a whole house generator and so, [00:02:00] um, we were a good place to go, but it was, it was a really scary time.
Absolutely. You know, friends, family members, neighbors, people who lost absolutely everything, people who are still losing everything because we've had, um, freshwater flash flooding, um, that's come about, you know, as, as recently as the last, you know, couple of weeks. And, and it's, um, so you think it's over and it's not always over right away, right?
And, um, I'll tell you, I've never seen, you know, I've lived in the Gulf Coast, uh, most of my life, uh, except when I lived in North Alabama for a few years, and I've never seen so many tornadoes spawned from a hurricane like I saw with Milton that hit basically to the east and south and north. Yeah, no, it was really scary.
And, uh, you know, it's, it's one of those things where mentally you sort of prepare, you know, at the beginning of hurricane season, do I have batteries and flashlights and, you know, water and canned goods and what's, [00:03:00] what's our plan. And, um, and I think. For those of us who have been here for a few years, it's an annual plan that you review and you think about and you talk about.
Um, there's a lot of new people in the state that this was their first experience with hurricanes and maybe they didn't have those conversations, maybe they weren't as prepared. But then as those tornadoes started coming down, um, and it was really widespread where you weren't under a tornado watch until you were like the whole Gulf coast of Florida was worried about what was coming with Milton.
And I had folks in West Palm and, you know, the other coasts that were, you know, very kindly offering support and help and all that sort of thing. And then they were the first ones hit with a tornado. And you're like, Oh my gosh, that's clear. The other side of the state. Um, it was. It was very scary and, um, you know, tough to manage expectations for, for everybody, even, you know, within your, your neighborhood.
[00:04:00] Um, because as you were, you know, Dealing with people who are maybe newer and not really understanding why it was so important to bring a trampoline in, um, in advance of a storm like that, or, you know, those types of things. It was, it was tough. And we, there was a lot of crazy, I think that made the news, you know, Lieutenant Dan and all of that kind of stuff.
And the people that were out there doing probably not the most, um, prudent things to do in advance of a storm or during a storm. Um, I know even with Helene, my daughter evacuated from Tallahassee and with some of her roommates, and then you saw the kids in Tallahassee that were out there just having fun with it.
And it's, it's a scary thing. It's not a fun thing. Right? No, for sure. It's not. And, uh, and just the, you know, the media coverage has increased through the years, which it's beneficial to talk about the storm. And, uh, but then it's definitely not a good thing. And I've worked, [00:05:00] you know, not only just Which short term rentals and our long term rental businesses we've have.
But then, you know, I used to do crisis management when I worked for BP and we would evacuate our whole business, uh, and go and then have to recover the business and take care of people. So we could recover the business. And so it's a lot to it. And, uh, yeah, definitely not fun. Uh, you mentioned you had a whole house generator, uh, and.
Before, we were talking a little bit about some of the, the, uh, stories that you saw in the news or in your, in your community about carbon monoxide poisoning. Can you share just a couple of those real quick? Uh. Absolutely. You know, I think when you. When you look at, um, those hurricane preparedness guides, which, you know, each state and region has their, their own, um, version of it.
But one of the things they tell [00:06:00] you is to get a generator, have a generator plan, especially if you have somebody on oxygen or somebody who has specific medical needs and that sort of thing. Um, they don't always tell you how to operate them. And often the first time somebody is operating it is in a storm, and that can be a very heightened emotional period of time.
Um, you think about everything somebody could be going through, whether they're expecting a baby, they just lost a loved one, they were just diagnosed with cancer, you've got somebody on oxygen, all of those types of things, and now you're presented with an, you know, electrical outage, and you need to cook for your family, and you're going to use the generator to maybe You know, maintain that oxygen supply or any of those special medical equipment or your refrigerator because you've got somebody who is on, um, you know, injectable medication that's required to be, um, refrigerated, those types of things.
And if you don't know what you don't know, and you bring that generator into the house because you can't get an extension cord to go. [00:07:00] From the refrigerator out. Um, you know, people don't realize how dangerous that is. And people died from bringing generators into their garage or into their house. And, um, It was really sad and then people who brought in their their grills into their house because they needed to cook and they didn't have a gas stove and they boarded up and couldn't get outside or you know they they brought it in to be able to cook during the storm and same thing carbon monoxide is carbon monoxide and it's one of those things nobody talks about until it's too late and it's not necessarily obvious um how dangerous it is and I think.
There's been a lot of advocacy in the short term rental space about putting in carbon monoxide detectors, but residentially, um, I don't know that a lot of people understand the risks with that. It's not a requirement of a [00:08:00] traditional homeowner's policy. People don't really talk about it. And so, sadly, there were, there were some deaths.
Yeah, so this year I started working with the National Coalition of Carbon Monoxide Association, NCOAA, and, uh, if you go to my Safer VR's website, under the resources tab, there's a section on carbon monoxide, and there is, uh, it's called a Gentent. Uh, basically it's like a little tent that you put over your generator.
That's outside to keep the carbon monoxide from coming inside. Uh, and it's, it's, it's really good. Uh, but carbon monoxide poisoning, we had hurricane barrel here in July. And, um, a lot of carbon monoxide poisoning, people would have power for weeks. Um, you know, my wife, uh, works at the hospital and there's a hyperbaric chamber.
And I tell you, every time she goes on call, I get worried because. [00:09:00] She gets called in for these carbon monoxide things because normally associated around the storm and whole families getting poisoned, um, from carbon monoxide. And yeah, so a huge opportunity to learn, uh, when, as we're getting into the winter months, and we're going to start using propane or fuel fired sources more.
We definitely want to cover some of that, uh, in a separate topic, but I mean, we see it when storms come about, it just produces, uh, you know, you survived the hurricane or the tornado or the flood, and now you have carbon monoxide poisoning. Yeah, and I think it's one of those things, understanding. The transferable skills.
So if you are a short term rental operator, um, or an employee, and you know about carbon monoxide testing and, um, monitoring in the short term rental, [00:10:00] that doesn't always correlate back to your home life in those situations. And. Well, you might be very used to checking, you know, smoke detector batteries and carbon monoxide, um, detectors and alarms while you're doing a home inspection.
You maybe don't have those things at home. And when we think about these types of events and incident response and management, you know, advance of a storm during a storm after a storm. Or whatever the event is, whether it's a wildfire or tornado or flood, you know, I think it's important to break the different categories of people we're talking about into how we communicate with them, because we can be very guest centric and understanding, you know, is the home safe for the guest is the, um, have we done all the things we can do to manage the incident from ensuring that we've communicated evacuation orders and where the closest hospital is and all of those types of things that are guest centric.
Thanks. [00:11:00] And then we have to look at, you know, our, our homeowners and our team members as well and say, what have we done there? And then flipping those individuals to become advocates within the community for these types of things. The saddest thing you can see, and it's true in healthcare too, you know, typically your most unhealthy people are healthcare workers.
And I, that can be very true when you look at. This type of, you know, safety and security, um, response. They're so focused on, I've got to get my guests out of there. I've got to make sure they're safe. I've got to take care of these things. And then for themselves, they haven't maybe done proper storm prep or they didn't think about the things that they needed to, to focus on in advance of the storm medication is a huge one.
And, um, It's something I talk a lot about in making sure once you you're allowed to emergency refills of a medication in advance of when you need it and [00:12:00] so immediately when we were under the storm watch my husband called his doctor and had all his medications refilled because you don't know what the supply chain is going to look like and those are really basic things that can be.
Handled in advance. But if you don't, uh, he's, he's diabetic. You could be in a crisis situation very, very quickly and making sure that you've communicated with your team about how to handle those things. It is important. And then post storm, you know, everything people want to do is open the door and look outside and see what's going on.
They tell you a lot of times, you know, when, when, once it's quiet, don't go outside, you're in the eye. Um, People are anxious to get back to check on their properties and you need to do that safely and you need to have a process for who goes back what jobs do they do because the spirit of I'm all in and I wear this organization on my sleeve is great except for if they get hurt and now.[00:13:00]
Now what happens? Because you don't know what you're walking into and you don't know if they're going to get stuck or hurt from something falling. We had crazy stories here with cranes that hadn't been secured properly, that crashed into buildings. Just a couple of days ago, there was a building that was condemned.
Everybody had 24 hours to get out, 500 people, residents, just, that's it. But up until that moment, they were living in a building that had been, was about to be condemned. So you don't know what conditions you're letting them go back and inspect this property up. Yeah, human behavior is always an interesting thing before we move on.
And is, uh, you know, because I always tell people, uh, we're, we're, because I've lived in the Midwest too, just briefly in Oklahoma and in Northern Alabama and South. Uh, but when the tornado sirens go off, right, uh, people would say, I'm going outside to see what's happening. The sky looks fine. And I'm thinking, no, that, that means that the tornadoes come into us.
You need to stay inside and like the lightning. [00:14:00] Lightning awareness goes off and people go outside and go out in the field and say, what's going on? And it's like, what are you doing? I mean, the hurricane's a lot slower, right? But, I mean, our behaviors around some of these things are just, uh, I don't know what.
Literally what we're thinking, you know, the warning is to stay inside and we want to go outside. So, yeah, no, it's true that we, you know, we have our designated safe rooms and, um, everybody laughs at me. My husband was taking pictures, but we went in, I laid out all the pillows and the bottles of water and everything because we.
We had a high wind warning that was three hours long and I took the dog and the kids each had their own space because you've got to go to a place that, you know, is internal, has no windows, that type of thing. And we just crouched down and it's scary. And you look at it and you say, well, how do you know for sure at nine 30, it's over as opposed to like nine 35.
Um, and [00:15:00] so some of those things are, are really interesting when you go back. On the flip side of that, and you say how, if there is damage, if there is something that that comes about, you know, what is this classified as and and language and and what you do during those warnings, um, can dictate what type of coverage you have, um, we had interesting stories where people.
Chose not to evacuate and they were in mandatory evacuation zones and you know, 1230 at night. They're rushing out of their homes. Some of those those situations were really tragic. Um, some of those and some of those were just residents, not not renters or anything like that. But there were also people who were not encouraged to leave.
During an evacuation by the property manager, people who were encouraged to leave, but the guest refused to leave and they were in a mandatory evacuation zone. And, you know, I know here they were talking a lot about conceptually when I say there's going to be a 12 foot [00:16:00] storm surge. What do you understand that to be?
And I think there's a lot of. Language that around that and in visuals that people need help with, um, you know, you can check the elevation of your home. And so people were freaking out, um, That I wasn't evacuating because I live in what's called Apollo Beach and it sounds like it's a very dangerous area.
It's coastal community is what it sounds like when you've got a hurricane coming, but the elevation of my house was 31 feet above sea level. And so when we're looking at what that storm surge was going to be, um, we knew we were high enough. For our specific house and every house has a different elevation and you can, you can check that.
Um, but that doesn't mean that you're not going to have flooding from sewers that you're not going to have flooding from swimming pools that you're not going to have flooding from other. Areas that are, that are going to come with massive flooding down our street. Not enough [00:17:00] to be life threatening, but it was three feet of water that went, it was, you know, coming in, coming in and then just went out in a strong rush and that tide, it can be very damaging.
You know, the, the incidents that happened during storm prep, somebody putting up shutters, falling off a three foot ladder and dying because he was holding a piece of plywood. You, there's a lot that can happen that can go wrong during a storm. So the idea of I'm going to go out and check it out and I want to see what's going on.
It is, it's a challenge. And I noticed, um, with the hurricane shutter company that I'm, they've now gone to a place where they put a clear circle in their shutters so that people can see. So hopefully you don't open the shutters and go outside. If you want to see what's gone so badly, you've got a little clear opening.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Well, I know there was several things that that you that we discussed before we came on that. You said, hey, we really people need to understand some of these [00:18:00] things that maybe they've missed. In in property management world or insurance world or and let's go through some of those and get started with some of that.
Great yeah, I mean, I think the 1st thing is to have a plan right? Like any anything else is what is your plan and understanding the roles in that plan? We talked a lot about my property in Madera Beach, which is in a condo. And so just dissecting that of all the different people that are involved in that incident management, because I'm the owner, I'm the property manager, but I'm beholden to an HOA board, a condo association board.
And then there's a building management company that oversees the contracts for that condo. And that's before you get into the municipal regulations. The county regulations and the state regulations. So things like when are they going to close the bridges to the barrier islands? [00:19:00] And so once you make a decision about hurricane prep, like what is, what is your window of time?
So in order to get over and prep for a hurricane, there's a, there's a finite amount of time for me to go over, put shutters down, bring furniture in, that kind of thing. Cause once they close the bridges, you can't get off the island. And so really spelling out those types of solutions from the management and then Liability and insurance, understanding what coverage you, you have and who's responsible for what, um, is really important because.
You know, a lot of people have business interruption insurance that's tied to say flood. It's very difficult, if not impossible, to have true business interruption insurance that isn't tied to something like a wind related event, a flood or fire event. During the pandemic, a lot of business interruption policies were re [00:20:00] rewritten to exclude a lot of things.
Um, And so understanding what's covered under your policy to determine if you have that business interruption insurance, and then what your, what your options are when you start that recovery process. And I think looking at who's involved is important. Looking at your policies are important and understanding what's covered, what's not.
Because a lot of people are saying, I've got business interruption. I've got flood. I'm good. And then you realize None of the damage that you have is actually covered under flood. So like our property has over 16 million worth of flood coverage. However, none of our damage is covered and it's because it's the parking lot.
It's the swimming pool. Um, it's things that are specifically excluded from your policy and my unit itself, cause I'm, um, four floors up [00:21:00] was not damaged in any way, but all of this, um, All of this damage is, is a problem for, for us as an association. So figuring out what that, that plan is, I think it's an opportunity and it's critical in those, in advance of those storms to figure out who is your emergency management response team.
So who is on call? Who's watching the storm? Who's making decisions? Who's the backup? Because if I have to evacuate for another reason, or if I've, you know, had some kind of challenge, um, Again, going back to understanding that everybody's life is evolving. If I'm suddenly, you know, out for surgery, well, I'm probably not gonna be the best person to go back and walk a property.
Um, those types of things you need to account for within that plan. And everybody needs to be on task with who's in charge because very quickly during an emergency. You can get a lot of order givers and all of a sudden you've got [00:22:00] conflicting information and you're not sure what it's based on. And, and you know, people's, um, panic mode can be high, but that needs to tie back to job descriptions too.
And, and that becomes very important in the event you do have, um, a situation where somebody gets hurt. So I know there's, you know, everybody's. Trying to be all hands on deck. Let's get in there. Let's clean this up. We're a team and that's great, but you need to plan for what if that person gets hurt. So if I'm, you know, in accounting and I'm now cutting down drywall and I accidentally cut my hand.
What is your insurance coverage look like for that because your workers comp carrier needs to know your job classification what their basic duties are and if this is way outside of their duties there's a chance that claim isn't going to be covered and so. You've got property situations where you're realizing you [00:23:00] thought you were insured but you're actually self insured you don't want to put yourself in that position from a medical standpoint either also knowing.
Every time you're texting somebody about storm updates and all the rest of it, that is compensated time. So if you have an hourly individual, you've got to track that information. You've got to have some kind of mechanism so that you've paid them appropriately, whether it's hourly, time and a half, or if they're salary based, you need to make sure you don't end up in a wage and hour issue because That storm, it was a 24 hour period where people were up and worried and concerned.
And if you had an hourly employee that for 24 hours was monitoring, whether you told them to, or they took it upon themselves to do that, that, that can be a problem from a compliance and, and a legal perspective as well. Yeah, you, you covered a lot right there. If we go back kind of the beginning, uh, I mean, so [00:24:00] if you're in condo buildings, right?
Some, some locations don't have condo buildings and, uh, but you may have an association. Uh, we have houses that have associations. And, uh, so I understand a lot because I check a lot of boxes there. So I'm an owner. Uh, I'm on a board. I'm on 2 boards. And, uh, I also manage for HOAs. So, definitely understanding and having a plan is important, right?
To know, hey, what am I doing? Because the HOA has a certain remit. They're taking care of, uh, all the amenities, uh, associated with the building, like the elevators, like, I think you mentioned your elevators were left on the ground floor. Uh, the flood came in and just, you know, Destroyed them, right? And, uh, I learned back in 04 with Ivan, you don't do that.
So I always make sure elevators up, um, because you can just imagine, uh, let's say only thing [00:25:00] you had was the elevator damage, but then there's 800 elevators out in your area. Likelihood of you being able to get back in to have a certificate of occupancy. Uh, It is going to be limited, right? So having that plan, understanding what the board is going to be directing the HOA company to do.
And then what do you need to do as part of that property manager, right? Are you bringing in furniture or you secure in the property? Uh, are you alerting guests? I mean, we did, uh, our drill. So we do a drill each year in current tides. We did on May 31st, not the best time, right? But the hurricane season started the next day, but it's good.
We learned a few things. We went out and said, we said, we were looking for something. I wanted to see it, you know, I went hands on it and we, we had added 30 new properties in the off season. We made sure all that information was up to date and what we're going to do in those buildings. Um, and then [00:26:00] watching the weather.
Uh, we, we use a phased response, and I'm sure maybe some people may have seen, uh, Sean Kemper and I did a review, like, at the beginning of hurricane season, where we talked about that and what to look at and then how to do recovery, uh, what type of chemicals you want to use, things like that. But we use a phased recovery.
So we're doing different. Phase like what are we doing so much time out so much time out and then finally we're evacuating and then we're going to recover right for a hurricane response. Everything is about prep and recovery. You're not preventing anything. You're not doing anything. And, you know, I always talk about controls, right?
So you're putting controls in place to reduce the likelihood. Of events doesn't mean you're going to prevent everything, but you're going to reduce the impact and that's what we're doing, particularly with working with guests to leave. And I know you said there was some guests in your local in your, in your building that decide not to leave.
And [00:27:00] we had the same thing when Sally came through 19th floor, the guests wouldn't leave. We begged him and they were wheelchair bound. And I think they eventually said, hey, we feel better here than where we were going. Okay. And but still now there's issues. Uh, people stuck on the 19th floor on the island and you can't get to them and so having a plan, working the plan and then also here probably in about another month, what worked well and what can we do better?
Right? I call it what worked well better. If I would say we did something wrong or we failed. I mean, that's just. The wrong language. Uh, how can we, what do we do? Well, what better if we did this? And so we want to learn from, from the storm. Um, and then the HR issues just about job descriptions. I hadn't thought about the having the [00:28:00] accountant who's deciding to help, uh, strap, uh, or move furniture and they get an injury and say, how does an accountant injure their hand?
Uh, so yeah. So lots of, lots of things. To learn here, yeah, and I think, you know, from an economic recovery, um, as people are going through and saying, okay, I had flood insurance. I didn't realize it wasn't going to cover all of these things, or I had flood insurance and it's only covering. You know, 250, 000 and it's not covering contents and I still have to go buy new appliances and everything else because that's not covered under my flood policy.
A lot of the pieces of understanding that knowing to, there's a lot of people that skirt the regulations around. Is your cleaner a 1099 or a W2 employee? It is very difficult to support a cleaner in a short term rental environment being a contract employee. You are almost always going to lose [00:29:00] that labor dispute.
And the problem that we're about to go into, it's twofold for the property manager or the business, is to get an SBA economic impact loan, technically you need to be a business that's going to have at least two employees. And, um, so if you're like me and I'm the business owner and the operator, I'm able to apply for that because my cleaners are W2 employees because I follow that regulation.
Others may not have that advantage, but your secondary issue. Is if your cleaner needs to file for unemployment, they need to file for economic assistance. That's where it becomes a rub that the government says, Hey, wait a second. Why can't you file for unemployment? Here's what you were doing before what's going on.
And in order to qualify for a lot of those things, you have to provide supporting documentation. They're going to be determined to be. [00:30:00] Misclassified employees and you weren't paying unemployment tax on them and you are going to have a huge problem. So those are things that you need to be really aware of when you're skirting those regulations and saying, oh, they're contract.
They signed an independent contractor agreement. I'm good. Nope, you are not. It is going to come down to a very specific definition and it is. Like I said, almost impossible to support a cleaner being a 1099. Yeah, we reviewed as current tides. We reviewed these rules with Catherine probably two months ago And we are now in the process of kind of working with our our housekeepers Of course, we're in the slower season and it's a good time to do this but uh We're going to say hey You're going to have to be an independent contractor and you have to have your own business license and you have to have your own insurance Uh, as opposed to where you could be an employee and, uh, a seasonal or part time employee.
It's, it's going to really put a strain on us. [00:31:00] Uh, and, and that definition changed, I think, in March or April of 2024, and if you haven't reviewed it or haven't discussed it as a, as a property management team, uh, it's definitely worth, uh, having a conversation with Catherine about it. Yeah, it's, it's a really, it's a, it's a lot, um, in terms of that, that adjustment.
And so, you know, keeping, keeping that in the back of your mind too, in terms of how you do that, but I really agree with the phased approach because as you start, you know, as you start that recovery process, um, Again, everybody's anxious to get back and see for themselves. What's what's going on. And I think a lot of what people didn't understand that they were hearing about in the media and that sort of thing.
Some of the delays with the cleanup from Helene, when you talk about that type of storm surge and things that are going through, you've got. Protected [00:32:00] data that if it wasn't secured in your building or in your home that is now spread out all over the county, right? So if I think about, um, you know, a guest profile and I've got their copy of their driver's license and their, uh, birth date or any other information they've shared with me or my employee files, right?
That's protected information. You've had a data breach now and it is. All over the street for anybody to look at. How do you manage that data breach and incident response? But also the other components of the things that washed away. So, you know, again, my husband is diabetic. Um, some people test on a regular basis.
Those are needles that are now on the beach. Or wherever they are the idea of i'm gonna go walk on the beach you don't know what you're walking in that is you're talking about why you have to purify the sand and the contaminants that have come out so from a workers comp perspective again you want to be [00:33:00] really careful what are you requiring your team to wear.
When they go out to inspect that property, you know, because you do not want somebody stepping on a needle or who knows what else that it wasn't in your property, but 12 feet of storm surge later it is. And again, all of the chemicals and we're really tight from a short term rental perspective of what chemical access there should be.
But your next door neighbor, who's just a homeowner, just had bleach and Drano and all kinds of things. billing over into your, your house. Those are really dangerous, toxic situations. Are you mandating that they're wearing masks? Are you mandating that there's only so much time that they're allowed to be at the property to limit exposures?
We've got a red tide bloom now. That is is covering this area. And so what does that look like as people are going through cleanup? Because you don't want to be exposing your team members to these really harmful [00:34:00] situations that can exacerbate an already, you know, really bad situation. Yeah, I think the PPE when you're doing the recovery phase, or even you're doing the prep phase, you know, you need protective footwear, you need gloves.
And at least safety glasses. Um, and then, you know, just to your point, we did a recovery on a property and, uh, we couldn't open the front door. It was a ground floor unit. So we went around, uh, to the front of the property, which is bait beach facing. And, uh, the slide glass door was broke and the entire contents of the property, plus all kinds of trees and debris was against the front door.
So that's kind of like what you're walking into. You're not just strolling into a property and opening the front door. You're going into a super debris contaminated area that needs to, you need to prepare your team and have the right PPE. Yeah, and you know, [00:35:00] that PPE is really important too because you think about up and down the beach, again, you had, Construction sites.
There was a lot of news coverage about, you know, the crane that didn't get, um, secured properly in St. Pete that, um, it was, it was life threatening. It was very damaging. Um, so, again, you're, you're only, you're only as good as your own little bubble of systems, and you have to assume that everybody around you, including large construction companies, are not following, you know, Proper protocols.
And so if you've got porta potties and, you know, human waste and medical, um, biohazard materials that are all of a sudden flowing into your property that you haven't anticipated, those are very real concerns and understanding. And this is where you, you get into a dangerous zone when you're asking people to, or even if they're volunteering to participate in recovery.
That don't normally do, you know, those housekeeping type of or, [00:36:00] or maintenance type of duties. What if you have an asthmatic? What if you have somebody with respiratory issues? What if you have somebody that is immunocompromised and you don't know that? Um, and now there's, there's a complex situation here because those are, those are very, very difficult scenarios and you had, um, Again, you had places that had never flooded before.
And I watched a lot of the coverage with, with a lot of fascination, Tampa general, I don't know if you saw it, they put up a water wall and, um, it got a lot of exciting press about the millions of dollars that they had to protect Tampa general. And, you know, for, for me and my sarcastic. Um, thought process here.
I'm sitting here going, well, where's the water going? Because the water doesn't just say, Oh, I'm so sorry, Tampa general, I'm not going to come in. I'll go back out into the ocean. No, it flooded parts of Tampa that had never been flooded before [00:37:00] because it was, it pushed all of that water back. And, you know, so people who didn't prep because they said they, they, this was it never flooded before.
We never had this type of debris. I think it's an opportunity as property managers and as subject matter experts in our own little areas to be able to say, these are, these are best practices and you're right. It's ever changing because you, you think you have this aspect down and then you realize this just changed.
Our area was far more agricultural where I live. Now it is, It's just completely different. You can barely recognize it with the amount of development. So that caused problems from an infrastructure perspective, you know, whether the sewers, the pipes, the, the data, um, the electric, all of those types of things, it was slower response time.
It was more difficult issues, burst pipes. And cause just the sheer volume that, you know, was coming in displacement of people. [00:38:00] Understanding, you know, to your point about people that don't evacuate, it's an opportunity to really lean in. I think we're great with guests about talking about why you want to come on vacation and how can I, you know, make this experience better for you because it's your birthday or it's your anniversary or whatever's going on understanding.
Well, I don't want to evacuate because I don't have a car. I ubered here from the airport because I was going to the beach. And so I don't know what to do because I can't uber to Atlanta. Like that's a real situation where somebody would not evacuate because they didn't rent a car. And you know, you, you have these opportunities to lean in and say, all right, how do we solve for that?
What are, what are the solutions around that? Somebody who's traveling with a pet and they don't. Think that they're going to be able to find a place, somebody who can't afford the gas and they're afraid of the gas outages or they, they were told because they're hearing on the news that there's no hotel rooms between, you know, Miami and Atlanta.
Well, as operators, we can [00:39:00] create these networks of here's, here's the solutions of what we can do. Here's how we can get you from A to B and, and understand that. I think medical facilities have done an excellent job. I have a client. They had to. They were starting evacuations, nursing homes, hospices, hospitals, they had other places that it was part of their disaster plan when this hurricane is coming into Sarasota or Naples or wherever, this is where we evacuate to, and this is the phase of evacuation, and I think if we could build partnerships where we can say, all right, I know always this cleaner is going to have to evacuate, I What's my plan for her how do i protect my team how do i protect my guest who are the people that i can reach out to in those situations to to be solutions or it's it to your point earlier.
Taking the standards the business practice standards that are accepted by large organizations whether they're healthcare related whether they're in the oil industry or whomever [00:40:00] their standards for a reason not because they just decided to come up with a bunch of rules it's because they work.
Transcribed Yeah, so, uh, a couple of things where we go jump on that. I was going to say when you're recovering, uh, some things I've learned. Um, so, if you don't see your property on the news, it's probably okay. All right. Uh, 2nd is. You have to be willing to be wrong, right? As a property manager or HOA, you're going to take and implement some actions.
You're going to turn away some, some guests. You're going to release guests from their contracts or their agreements. You're going to move furniture in. You're going to spend resources and the storm doesn't come. That's okay. Trust me. It is okay. I've done this for 30 years, right? It's okay. It'll be fine.
The alternative is not fine. You have people trapped and you have properties damaged because you didn't take care of the balcony [00:41:00] furniture, et cetera. And then 3rd point is we've been talking about hurricanes, right? And I was sitting here thinking and saying, you know, this preparation and this recovery.
Uh, if you're our friends that are listening in the mountains, uh, in Gatlinburg or in Colorado or anywheres, right? I mean, you need a plan, right? Wildfires happen. If you're in the Midwest, if you're in Tulsa out there or in Oklahoma or in Dallas or in Fredericksburg, tornadoes happen, you have to be ready, right?
So it doesn't matter what the issue is. It, it, You know, the system that, uh, Catherine referred to, it's called an all hazard system. It's the National Incident Management System, and, uh, everybody's using it that works for the government, the fire department, et cetera. And it's basically a way to organize everything from a parade to hurricane response in anything.
I've used it [00:42:00] for anything and everything. And, uh, I told Catherine when we were starting, I had put together. I was flying back from Egypt, you know, when I was working in Egypt and I said, we need something within the short term rental industry that talks about how do we manage it? How do we bring resources together?
So I called it in, in my, in my phone notes, start, you know, short term rental response team. And it talked about where we could pool resources. Contribute funds in a non profit way, store things like maybe Sojo and Maxim in Nashville, someplace out west, and then just talk about, hey, um, you know, we use this software, and we're willing to have you and your team come over.
And you can recover and take care of your guests and you have that's that part of the team. Then you have your team on the ground and just knowing that the government is using the system. And if you can just plug right in there and say, I understand [00:43:00] what you're doing. Or it's just a way to methodically manage an incident.
Yep. No, it's very true. And I think if you go through your existing systems today, because you're right, hurricanes are one thing. And to a certain degree, they're a little bit more predictable. You know, we, we have a dedicated season for them. Um, but you can have fires and yes, there's wildfire season. But you can still have a really bad fire that, that breaks out.
There were all kinds of things that were happening around the hurricane that were not hurricane related explosions, fires, you know, manufacturing incidents, those types of things, um, things happened, emergencies happen. What is the protocol? We talked a little bit to, um, before we started recording about active shooter and some of the things that go on in some of the areas, you know, we, we get warnings where there is.
Somebody, I have a, I have a property in central [00:44:00] Florida and we get those notices, you know, and it's basically a shelter in place. And what do you do? How do you communicate that to your guest? You know, we want to have this amazing guest experience. The last thing I want to tell them is, Hey, there's an active shooter.
Don't, you know, stay in the house or get back to the house. Um, you don't want to be at the mall right now, but if you don't do that, like the, the alternative. Of those incident responses can can be horrific and you don't want to be, you know, on the news for that reason either. So it is really important to develop these policies.
They need to be reviewed on a regular basis and it is across the country. Um, because you might have, you know, a thinking about sojo, you know, their CFOs here. He's. You know, he was in Pinellas County is where he lives. And, um, so you've got a diverse workforce. What does that mean? Because the assumption could be everybody in this organization is fine because they're outside the [00:45:00] zone of disaster and you don't realize that actually there's a critical team member.
That is impacted by this and you don't know what you don't know. So having the policy, whether you think it directly affects you or it doesn't is important. You also want to understand what happens when you go on vacation. So if I live in Oklahoma, but I happen to be vacationing in, in Florida when this goes on, you know, what as an organization, you know, are, are we calling on our team members to do?
Um, because the sad part about social media is they're constantly looking for content and the, and the, um, the desire to point out human flaws is great. And so whatever people are, you know, sourcing, Lieutenant Dan is probably a great example because he ended up getting arrested after that for all of the things people were offering him, [00:46:00] you know, a huge, you know, Upgrade in his boat until they found out what is criminal record look like so your team member doing something that is not prudent you need to remember you represent the organization when you're on the clock and when you're off the clock and if you do something.
Kind of ridiculous during a storm that draws attention of the mayor and the media and all the rest of it. That's drawing attention on the organization as well. So some of those policies are really important to have, you know, in a very broad basis, even if you think it's not going to impact you. Exactly and I mean, these are all things, you know, we can work together with, uh.
With the industry, uh, with companies who want to do that, of course, safety VRS can help with that. Uh, the benefits piece and. You're just fantastic at that. You've helped us so much. Um, I think it's, you know, it's something for people, some business owners take a look at and, uh, certainly work through [00:47:00] anything else before we wrap up, uh, anything else, big items we need to cover.
I mean, you've been through a lot, uh, and still recovering. Still recovering. It's expensive. I think it's, uh, you know, no, I think we've covered a lot. I think it's a good idea to do this. You know, repeatedly and remind people that there are resources out there. I think it's, it's very emotional for a lot of people.
And, um, I think it's okay to not be okay. And I think reach out to your peers and to your colleagues and ask for advice, ask for support in the various issues and have a lot of patience and empathy because people, even when they themselves may be. Okay. Um, understand that their, their neighbor or their child's friend or, you know, whomever may not be okay.
And they're carrying that with them. It's, it's a difficult time for a lot of people. Yeah, absolutely. [00:48:00] 1 of the things that I learned, we, we imported a lot on the oil spill, you know, because I was there for, uh, over 3 months. It's amazing how, for example, you just talked to someone about sports or what's happening, uh, because you don't watch the news.
Only thing you watch is what you're doing for 12 to 14 hours a day. And, uh, always checking up on people and just saying, Hey, how's it going? Talk to me, tell me what's going on. How you doing? Want a cup of coffee and get some water. It just goes a long way. Uh, when you're, when you're recovering. Or responding to an event.
So important. It, it really is. And, you know, I've got three kids, as you know. And, um, it's been really heartbreaking to see the kids try to carry the load of their friends who lost everything. And you think, you know, as, you know, somebody in my age bracket and that sort of thing, and I can process it and I can deal with it.[00:49:00]
The way a 13 year old or a 17 year old deals with it is very different. And, and that's hard on the parents and the adults that have to, you know, manage that. It's a tough time. It's, it's not just because the storm passed doesn't mean the storm is over. And I think that's, that's the biggest people need to understand.
One more story, I guess, but Harvey hit, uh, my wife and I were with friends. We were on a cruise ship in Mexico and our kids were here with our puppies and, uh, They never lost power and they didn't flood, but almost everybody around us did. And finally, when we could talk to them and know they were okay, I mean, our kids were early twenties and my daughter was probably 16 or something.
I mean, they had the neighborhood over here and friends and they were cooking for everybody and taking care of each other, which [00:50:00] was really great. It's a great story from a bad storm. Uh, and I'm glad they learned that and could do that. We, we had that too. Um, I, I posted about my daughter in the support of the, you know, mental health awareness day because her student government association just made up of 17 and 18 year olds and they were going to each friend's house and helping cut down, you know, plywood and throw out all their things.
And you think about what does that feel like to be at your, you know, your 17 year old friend's house Throwing out their mattress and their everything, their couch and all of that. It's a lot of trauma, a lot of trauma, but serving at the same time with a big heart. Yeah, which is exactly what you and I do.
Uh, that's why we bring it up as we, as we end. So Catherine, thanks for reaching out and sharing this, this information from the front lines, [00:51:00] uh, and some, some good wisdom here for everybody. Uh, we appreciate it. Thank you for having me, Eric. It's always a pleasure. Great. And everybody go out and create a safe day.
You're the only one who can do it. All right. See you. Bye bye.
