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Thursday, July 19, 2007 started like most
any work day. But, as I prepared to leave home for the office, I heard a
news report of a building fire in Prince Georges County. As an insurance
agent, I am always concerned when I hear about fires, auto accidents and
other events that may affect the safety and well-being of our
policyholders, so I began walking toward the television. But the news
got even more personal, as the fire was on Washington Boulevard in
Laurel, and as the picture came into view, I realized that we were the
policyholder experiencing a fire. Our office building, the 116 year-old
historic Linzey mansion, was on the news, fully engulfed in flames.
The next few hours were very emotional as we watched the beautiful
building we had called home for the better part of 15 years, destroyed.
It was a very hot day, and the firefighters worked hard to extinguish
the flames, but the building suffered extensive damage and the property
inside was destroyed.
Upon arriving on the scene, we contacted our insurance carrier, Erie
Insurance Group, and they responded immediately by sending a team of
people to provide aid and support. By mid-afternoon on Thursday, it was
clear that all of the contents in the building were destroyed. The
building was still standing, but a burned out shell is all that
remained.
We later learned the fire originated in the front garden area. Witnesses
reported a group of people had been sitting on the front porch smoking
early that morning. Apparently a discarded cigarette smoldered in the
dry mulch and spread to the wooden porch steps. The situation declined
rapidly from there, and the balloon frame building was destroyed in a
short time. According to the fire department the building was engulfed
in flames in seven minutes
As a sales & service organization, it was important for us to stay
accessible to our clients, and we quickly shifted into assessing how to
operate our agency without any of the tools we normally utilize. We
needed a location, phones, computers and desks at a minimum-and fast!
Erie had arranged to send us their Catastrophe Response Unit (CRU) to
use as a temporary office. The modified motor home was equipped with the
essentials: desks, chairs, computers, copier & fax. Our records are
extremely important, and thankfully, we had a complete back-up of our
electronic data off-site. Our information technology company, Innovative
Technology Consulting (ITC), came to collect our back-up unit, and
immediately that evening began building a temporary computer server with
all of our programs, email and policyholder data. Since much of our
client contact is by phone and e-mail, we also needed to have our
telephone and Internet service restored, and this proved to be one of
our greater challenges.
The organizational decisions we made prior to the fire, along with
assistance from Erie Insurance, helped us to get back to business right
away. Amazingly, the Erie CRU arrived overnight, and when we reported to
our parking lot on Friday morning, less than 24 hours after the fire,
the mobile office and crew was there, waiting to help us. By noon on
Friday ITC had our new server connected to the workstations in the CRU,
and we could serve our policyholders needs!
Once we could take care of our clients needs, we shifted our attention
to finding a new location. The CRU was on loan to us for approximately
two weeks, and we began scouring the Laurel area for immediately
available office space. In between office shopping, we ordered new
computers, telephone & voice mail systems, printers, fax and a copier.
In addition, we rented new office furniture and purchased various office
supplies. Two weeks after the fire we moved into a new (temporary)
office of 2,000 sq ft, after painting a few key areas, and installing
all of our office equipment.
There were plenty of stressful moments along the way, as "building" a
new office in less than two weeks was a monumental task. But, we had the
proper insurance in place, backed by a quality company, Erie Insurance.
We also are blessed with a staff of caring professionals who really
walked out our agency credo, providing almost seamless support to our
clients. And finally the support of our family, friends and key vendors
helped us to overcome this overwhelming event. |
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