Tales From the Danger Zone
by Katherine E. Wood
It all started three years ago when I was promoted to facilities manager at the Marin Independent Journal in Novato, Calif. My predecessor had already left, as had two of the five facilities staffers--along with all the information they had in their heads.
Crises were everywhere: The air conditioner froze, the temperature in the press room shot to 80 degrees, old plumbing broke and no one knew how to shut off the water. Then our big compressor went down. Someone decided to hit the main switch--thinking this would restart it--and a ball of fire shot out, narrowly missing him.
For all of these reasons, I asked our production director if I could develop a manual on how to handle crisis situations.
To write the manual, I started at square one, talking with contractors and outside plumbers. I asked them to walk me through all the steps. I wrote the first draft, reviewed it and rewrote it, trying to make sure it was readable and understandable. Then the contractors and plumbers reviewed it for me, and I edited it some more. In conjunction with this, our safety committee held fire-safety fairs to train all employees how to use fire extinguishers and take care of burns.
In April 1996, after two years, the manual was completed. It includes sections on how the facilities staff is to handle fires, water-pipe breaks, power and phone outages, and problems with elevators, compressors and air conditioning. It also includes procedures for the security company we hired for weekends, evenings and holidays, covering everything from incident reports to handling fire, police procedures, bomb threats and earthquakes.
Despite how proactive the building maintenance department has become, we constantly find new problems and solutions. We also find ourselves continuously updating procedures to maintain a productive and safe environment.
Katherine E. Wood is facilities manager for the Marin Independent Journal in Novato, Calif. Phone, (415) 382-7267; fax, (415) 382-0549.