Sandy, Irene Prompt Northeastern Businesses to Renew Focus

Excerpted from Business Insurance |  June 8, 2014

“Traditionally, utilities are placed in the basement,” said Edward Haas, managing consultant at Marsh Risk Consulting in New York. “Building owners are now challenged with the choice of how to protect flooded basements in the future.”

“They can choose to elevate the utilities, which is what is typically done in Florida,” Mr. Haas said. “They can harden buildings. We've seen some conversions of loading docks into utility space. Some companies have gone full-tilt with flood walls.”

“A lot of organizations ended up spending a lot of time on the planning process as well,” said Tracy Knippenburg Gillis, global reputational risk and crisis management leader for Marsh Risk Consulting in New York. “A lot of organizations didn't have physical damage (after Sandy), but either their employees did or they were having trouble getting (to work) and they were without power.”

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