Back to Facility Manager
Contents
Back to Home |
Today
was a long day for many of our IAAM members. Today, October 23, as I write
this column for Facility Manager, fires are raging across southern
California. Today, more than 900,000 people are under evacuation orders —
more than were evacuated from the Gulf Coast during Hurricane Katrina,
constituting the biggest movement of civilian population in the United
States since the Civil War.
Today, former IAAM president Carol Wallace went to work
at the San Diego Convention Center, having already evacuated her own home.
Today, the IAAM members at Qualcomm Stadium were sheltering more than 10,000
California residents forced from their homes by the fires, while Richard
Andersen and the folks at PETCO Park played host to American Red Cross
staging activities.
Today, IAAM member and past president Frank Poe spent
much of his day in Dallas working to get the IAAM mass care shelter
materials to those in California who were rushing to set up those shelters.
Today, IAAM’s Harold Hansen and Gregg McManners, Madison, Wis., were in
Providence, R.I., meeting with the National Fire Protection Association,
reviewing Life Safety code changes effecting public assembly venues. Today,
Meredith Craig spent her day at IAAM headquarters monitoring the situation
in California by sending out a press release, while R.V. Baugus worked to
post timely information to Front Row News on the IAAM Web site. Further,
Frank Poe and Harold Hansen facilitated communications between the American
Red Cross’s command center in Washington, D.C., and the California venues
supporting sheltering efforts.
But to fully appreciate the events of today, we must
look back over the past two years. We look to Greg Davis, who along with his
staff operated a shelter for several weeks at the Cajundome following
Katrina, and then used that experience to lead the development of IAAM’s
Mega Shelter Management Best Practices. We look to IAAM immediate past
president Larry Perkins signing a letter of agreement with the American Red
Cross last February in Washington, D.C., that defines the cooperation
between the ARC and IAAM facility managers when setting up shelters. We look
to IAAM counsel Turner Madden drafting a model contract that will spell out
in advance the terms governing FEMA use of public assembly facilities long
before the emergency erupts.
We look to John Siehl who, as chair of the IAAM Life Safety
Council, spends dozens of hours each week working to advance safety and
security training for public assembly facility managers.
But what about the future? Next week Victor Landry and
his International Crowd Management Conference committee will offer another
ICMC featuring training on the operation of mega shelters as it relates to
college campuses. Over the next six months, dozens of chapter meetings will
be held in communities around the world, offering our IAAM members the
opportunity to network with officials from local emergency agencies.
In June, Marco Perez will reopen the Kiefer UNO
Lakefront Arena after more than $25 million in post-Katrina renovations. In
the future, on every day of every week, IAAM members around the world will
come to work, regardless of the strife in their own lives, and provide for
the safety and security of millions of guests who just want to see the game,
listen to the concert, or watch the play knowing that they will be safe
while they do it.
Today, and every day, I am proud to be a member of IAAM.
I hope you are enjoying a very happy holiday season. Hopefully, by the time
you read this, the thousands of lives that were impacted by the California
fires will be getting back to normal. Let’s pray that 2008 will be a year of
peace and prosperity for us all.
Steven L. Peters, CFE
IAAM President
|
|
