How Having a Trusted IAQ Partner Before a Hurricane Helps with Recovery After

During the 2017 hurricane season Harvey and Irma ripped into the United States. Millions of people were affected by high winds and flooding. Trees and utility poles fell. Over 60% of Florida lost electricity, some went up to 10 days without service. Roofs of homes and businesses suffered damage. Coastal areas and rivers flooded. Water entered buildings, and HVAC systems went offline causing indoor humidity and temperatures to skyrocket. These are all factors that can degrade indoor air quality and create health risks to building occupants.

Of course, as these storms slowly crept to their eventual landfall, businesses prepared the best that they could, while disaster response teams mobilized and prepared for deployment.

While many businesses and facilities are now getting back to normal, many others continue to deal with issues related to hurricane damage. If recovery efforts are not managed properly issues such as microbial growth (mold and bacteria) and continuing structural degradation can occur. These concerns can remain hidden for weeks or months and continue to affect the safety/health of occupants until discovered and corrected.

One of the main things that separates those businesses that reopen their buildings quickly after a storm, versus those who continue with weeks and even months of ongoing problems, is partnerships forged before a catastrophe strikes. A business relationship with an indoor air or environmental quality firm is important and sometimes overlooked.

Hurricane Preparation

As a Florida based company Pure Air Control Services Inc., knows precisely how to prepare and handle the situation of a Hurricane targeting the state. Even as Irma was making her approach and meteorologists were predicting all of Florida to be in the storm’s path, we were busy mobilizing our resources and beginning to contact our customers. We had crews poised to help with recovery efforts all over the state. At our Clearwater headquarters generators were tuned and ready to keep the facility and especially the Environmental Diagnostics Laboratory operational.

After the Storm

Once the hurricane moved through we moved out with boots on the ground to begin helping our customers with immediate needs. Both our Building Sciences and EDLab teams were dispatched to perform indoor environmental and air quality sampling, as well as assessing storm damage to our customers’ facilities. Analysis and remediation plans are underway for many clients, while the process is just getting started and ongoing for others. Our experience and help identifying potential IAQ threats gave our customers confidence as they move forward with their reconstruction work. We even cleaned and disinfected schools that were used as storm shelters with our PURE-Decon service ahead of students returning to the facility for classes.

For our customers, having an IAQ solutions partner in advance was a tremendous benefit. We we can work together to address storm related issues quickly, the risk of building and occupant health problems is greatly reduced, as are the associated costs.

Choosing The Right IAQ Services Provider

Maintaining optimal indoor air and environmental quality is just as important during normal operations as it is during a crisis. Having a strategic partner that all ready handles your IAQ is the key to being able to quickly address concerns over hurricane damage to move the recovery process forward. Especially because you will not have to get on a waiting list for services or make an under informed choice from the available or even out of area contractors, that likely will cost more.

When looking for a strategic IAQ partner weigh the experience, industry knowledge and licenses of the firm you are considering above all else. Pure Air Control Services, Inc. was established in 1984 as a independent, mechanical, contracting firm and has since set the industry standard for indoor environmental quality diagnosis, environmental laboratory analysis and innovation remediation solutions. We have serviced more than 600 million square feet of indoor environments in over 10,000 facilities. Pure Air has a Building Sciences division with certified mold inspectors, CDC Elite Environmental Diagnostics Laboratory and Building Remediation Sciences division all under one roof. We have mobilized our resources to provide services across the United States, Puerto Rico and even as far reaching as Saudi Arabia.

The key to a relatively fast recovery after a hurricane is having trusted IAQ partner to help maintain a good baseline for building health before.

If you have any questions or would like to get more information about setting up an emergency response plan, please contact Alan Wozniak, President/CEO Pure Air Control Services, Inc., at 1-800-422-7873, extension 802 or Contact Us.