 Aloha and welcome to Restaurants Hawaii on Think Tech Hawaii. I am your host, Cheryl Matsuoka, the Executive Director of the Hawaii Restaurant Association. Twice a month, we discuss important and timely topics centered around Hawaii's food service industry. Hurricane season is in full force right now and it doesn't end till November 30th. As of June 8th, 2022, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, predicts two to five tropical storms in the Central Pacific hurricane season this year. So people get ready because we are going to be seeing some tropical storms. Emergencies and disasters could halt your business and every day a restaurant or a business is closed, we're losing large sums of money, loss of sales because you are closed and plus the repair costs all add up. So today we're discussing why being partnered ahead of time and being prepared for all emergencies and having a plan is so critical. Knowing who to call can certainly get you back up and quickly and safely back into operation. So today, I have two ladies with me from first onsite. First, I would like to have, Cheryl, can you please introduce yourself? Tell them a little bit about yourself and how you assist your clients through natural, through disasters. Well, thank you very much, Cheryl, for having us on board. So my name is Cheryl Ferrito with first onsite and I am a regional account manager. So my clients specifically are restaurants retailers, which is a perfect group for the association. Our services help with emergencies and we're going to talk today about why it's important to have that plan and partnership in place prior. A lot of restaurants, I myself was in the restaurant industry for about 10 to 12 years. So being a restaurant manager and knowing the daily ins and outs and what pops up every day, certainly is something that I know something about. Thank you, Cheryl. And Rachel, please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about how you help your customers get through disasters. Hi, I'm Rachel Lee. I am a regional account manager just like Cheryl. I take care of my clients in the parts of the unexpected happening, whether it's disasters or random events that happen. I am kind of the front facing to our clients and kind of the liaison between the rest of our team to them as well. Thank you, Rachel. Welcome, ladies. So today we're talking about why during this season, more so, there's an emphasis on having a plan. In every business, there is an operation manual. In that manual, should a natural disaster or any disaster happen, whether it's flooding, whether it's a fire, whatever it is, even COVID, you know, an employee test positive and that employee was at work all day yesterday. You know, how do you handle all these different scenarios? So why do we need to put into our business operation manual who to call in case there is a flood, a fire, or a positive COVID case from one of your employees? You should really think about that ahead of time versus it's happening and now you're opening up the yellow pages trying to, well, people don't do that anymore, they Google. I'm just Google it and say, who can I call? So Cheryl, share with us, you know, some of the things that you do pre-disaster, as a, I guess, thank you. First, we're gonna talk about hurricane preparedness for either restaurant or retail. It's extremely important to have a, yes, a standard operating procedure for emergencies and it could be anything from heavy winds that push against your windows and windows shatter or rains, heavy rains, whether the rains can come in and flood underneath the doorways or a pipe burst, a fire happens on your stove, the toilet overflows. So being in the restaurant, you know it happens, it's gonna happen, it's not if it happens, it's when it's gonna happen. So knowing and your staff knowing who to call as well. So all of your managers, shift managers, all the way down to your servers and your cooks, one should make the manager on duty aware of it, of course, but having that magnet there saying, oh, this is who I call when there's an emergency. That's really important. It saves time and it saves you money in the long run because the sooner you can address your flood, the sooner you can reduce the water damage, not only on your flooring, but also on your drywall, your walls. If it's coming from the ceiling, for example, if it's a broken sprinkler head or you have a broken HVAC pipe that comes, it may not necessarily be your establishment. It could be your neighbor upstairs if you're in a multi-level establishment where they have the issue and then now it becomes your problem. So knowing who to call right away to mitigate that initial extraction of the water is important because the longer you let that water sit, the higher it's gonna go up on your drywall and the higher it goes on your drywall, the harder it is gonna be to dry. So, and if you don't dry it thoroughly and the right way, you can't just mop it up. That's not gonna solve your problem. Then mold sits in. If you let the mold grow, then you're gonna end up having to cut that out of the wall. Then you have to do reconstruction. So it's a rippling effect, literally, water reference, rippling effect if you don't take care of it right away. So having that partnership with a restoration company is extremely important to one, get it done immediately. What we initially do is once you invite us into your home, which is your store, because we all know as managers, we live there, we go and we assess and we look for things like where's your water shut off? Where's your gas shut off? Where's your electric shut off? That's also important that your staff knows where that's at. Orientation and training is really important so that if something does burst, they know immediately where to go and shut off the water safely. Make sure that's the priority too. Make sure they do it safely. So we go in, we figure out in case we do have to respond, we know where do we park our vehicles? How long can we stay there? Also during a natural disaster, if it comes to a point, so when we initially shut down for COVID, only certain people can be on the road, right? We had to have letters saying, yes, we work at a restaurant. We're gonna go to, we're still working. It's also important to have that for us as first onsite with your letterhead saying first onsite is our restoration partner and we give them permission and access to come to our property to take care of XYZ. And we can help each restaurant or each owner go ahead and write that letter out. It's just letting the authorities know that we've been given permission prior to help you. So all the other necessary things for a hurricane preparedness, of course is first aid station, fire extinguishers, protective PPE, the gloves, the eye protection. Also, if you haven't already done so, take pictures of all of your equipment, all of your furnitures and your furnishings, anything that can be damaged. When it's in its pristine ideal condition, that way when a disaster does happen, you can take the after pictures of, hey, this was the damage that was done, right? That's for insurance purposes and keep it locked up in a way where, well, it has to be accessible, but off the ground. So if your filing cabinets are on the ground, it's very important that you have them either on like cinder blocks or some sort of platform that's above the ground level. So if the water does come up, it doesn't damage your paperwork. So as far as like how we respond to a natural disaster, which is, because everyone is gonna be calling us, all of our clients are gonna be calling us, right? So we do have a master service agreement that we do with our larger clients and even the smaller ones where if we have the resources, national resources that we watch in monitor storms. So we kind of know what to expect and our teams that are in the mainland will get ready and gear up, they're called go guys. So they will go, they'll get on a plane with the equipment and the manpower that come here and they will help us out here in Hawaii. That's what First Signs site is all about. They respond to natural disasters all over the country. And so if you are on our master service agreement list and you call, they know that you are a priority and they will get to you quicker than if you were just a one off here so it's the relationship and partnership that we wanna establish with you folks. We wanna see you more than one time. It doesn't even have to be for a disaster but even going in and inspecting mold, if you have, especially in your walk-ins or along the walls in the dish rooms where there's always water or moisture present, it's important that you see any type of mold to get that removed. And it could just be a simple wipe down or if it's really damaged or the drywall is damaged because of that constant water contact especially in the dish rooms, that's where we find them. And the restrooms as well. It's important to address that and get that taken care of before it becomes a very large project, an expensive project. So it's all about prevention. It's all about maintenance and taking care of things. And then kind of running along into that, what else, how else can you save money during to prepare for emergencies is getting your, for the restaurants, your hoods cleaned, right? You wanna make sure that you have a routine hood cleaning and you also wanna make sure that your oil rags are taken care of and disposed of properly in the proper placements so that they don't spark up and start fires. There have been a couple of incidents where the establishment itself says everything is supposed to do for prevention but it's the outside entities that come in and cause the leaking or the water damage or the fires. For example, recently there was a flood and all the water shopping center and it was because there was a homeless gentleman that broke into the utility room and literally ripped out the HVAC piping. So it flooded a restaurant, it flooded the Department of Motor Vehicles and it also flooded the corridor for the shopping center. So there was multiple people affected by an outside entity that's considered emergency. So that restaurant manager, he had no idea who to call. Fortunately, I was responding to the DMV next door and I said, hey, are you okay? He's like, I don't think so. So I went in there, my team, we assessed it and we helped him out. So what happens is, we go in there and we extract the water and we also sanitize and clean it so that it's clean but the next step and install dehumidifiers to make sure that everything is dried out. He wanted to like open that day. The reality of it was, it probably was sitting there for, the water was sitting there for a while and the reality is he most likely has to cut some of the walls out and properly take care of that problem. So he doesn't get mold, especially in the restaurant industry, health concerns, yes. So that's one incident about flooding. Another one was a fire which happened in Kapahulu and there was an outside shopping cart of a homeless person that caught on fire and that fire ended up going into the establishment. So it's not a matter again of if it's gonna happen, it's when it's gonna happen. We wanna try and avoid and prevent and prepare as much as possible but having a good plan in place is the key to saving money, saving time. The sooner you get it fixed, the sooner you address your problems, the sooner you can reopen, not only for your revenue but for your employees, right? You wanna make sure that your employees are working. So along the lines of hurricane preparedness, establishing and assessing how quickly can I reopen if the heavy rains flood my unit or flood my store after a first onsite is all done. Well, we have to make sure that your employees and their families are safe, right? You need workers. So you have to make sure that they're able to come in as well. So not only is it the human aspect that you have to consider as a whole. So I know today we can talk totally about like, hey, what first onsite services we have, but we also as a restaurant manager, previous restaurant manager, there's a lot of different elements that go into, hey, can we open, right? Safety is the first priority, making sure it's safe for your customers to come back in. There's nothing dangling or damaged that they can step on or slide into. That's very important, but also the safety and health of your employees as well. So we also do provide COVID decontamination. So yes, if you do have an employee that comes in is tested positive, it's a chain reaction. It's most likely the rest of the staff has some sort of contact with that. So we do provide COVID decontamination services as well. So, you know, our website has everything on there, but it's just things that you normally wouldn't consider happening that could happen. You know, fire, you have, the fire department comes in, they give us the all clear. It's the, well, what do we do with all the water that they just shot into my restaurant? How do we get that cleaned up? Well, you call first onsite and once we get the okay for the fire department, we'll go and extract the water. And then we do assessment and, you know, clean it all up. We put our air scrubbers in there to clean the air out so you don't have that smoke smell. And then even your toilets, call the plumber for the actual toilet, but as far as cleaning it up, that's the category three. No one likes to deal with that. Nobody, but we will, we'll take care of it for you. No problem, just give us a call. Yeah, and then also, yeah, and the smell of that too. So the sanitation of it, again, broken sprinkler heads, infrastructure on a lot of our restaurants is quite old and sprinklers, the infrastructure does sometimes rust out and all of a sudden we'll just start bursting for no reason at all. So that's when you would give, again, find out where that water shutoff is and then call us for extraction. And then asbestos, but, you know, we do asbestos abatement and a lot of times you won't find it unless there is a previous problem happening. Say for example, you know, your sprinklers don't go off or you get a leak from the roof and you have to remove your ceiling tiles. Well, once you remove your ceiling tiles, that's when you get into the journey, you're like, oh my gosh, I did not know that was there. And a lot of types, the asbestos is in the installation that's around the piping that could be affected. Or if you're having to, you know, cut into walls, the asbestos is in the mud or the spackle that's in there. So we do have third party testers that go in and our environmentalists that go in and test everything to make sure that our workers are safe. And of course that you guys are safe as well. Because if you're gonna fix it, fix it right. And that way you don't have a future problem with that. So that's where the asbestos abatement comes in. But we also do lead remediation. So if you have an old building and you notice that the paint is flaking off, we can take care of the smaller flaking areas, test that to make sure, you know, if it is safe or not, or if it has lead in it. And then we can take care of that problem as well. I know I've gone and on. Do you have any other questions for me, Cheryl? Well, I was gonna have Rachel kind of cover us other services, you know, Rachel, one of the, I think it's more apparent that the importance of keeping our establishments, especially restaurants clean post COVID, you know, during COVID, everybody's super sensitive to, you know, six foot distancing and wearing masks. Now I think our customers and our patrons are more sensitive. So we talked about mold. And if a customer does see mold, let's say it's in the bathroom or let's say it's in the hall leading to the bathroom. I feel that our patrons and customers are more sensitive to those things. So they may not say something to the restaurateur or the general manager, but they'll definitely probably not come back. And they probably will tell all their friends and family. So what would you say to something like that where, you know, a restaurant does have signs of mold or signs of things that maybe is not the best presentation for our public? Yeah, I mean- I am definitely, yeah. I'm definitely in a preacher. I see something, do something, see something, say something. So my thing was even if it is you're open and you do visually see it, maybe employee, general manager, manager, or whatnot or shift manager, you see something, you do something, you say something and of course plan of attack, right? So you wanna kind of go to the management team if you're an employee and mention, you know, the concern there. Some people are highly sensitive more others are not sensitive to seeing visual mold. But then again, you wanna side on the area of caution and of course bring that up to the management and have that addressed in that matter of fact then we would definitely be called out and we'll come out and do a site assessment. And mold is kind of one of those things where it can be a can of worm. So if you do inspect it and you see it and, you know, we mitigate it sometimes the mitigation might not just be, you know a foot by two foot cut out. It might be something that spans out a little bit further. So it's kind of being educated and cognizant of the job might span a little bit further than just that square footage or area in the bathroom if that's where it has been seen. And then also if there's mold then obviously there's a sign of a leak somewhere and something that might not have been addressed. So it might be a matter of investigating. So opening it up and seeing exactly where the source is coming from, you know it may be some condesating from pipeline it might be a sprinkler leak it might be a chill water line, you know of the building. So it just depends where, you know that leak might occur from but if there's mode it's been occurring for a duration and a period of time and that's kind of what mode feeds off of just kind of that dryness of the drywall and dry material with dust and skin particles and cells and water is all it needs. So if you can't, if you don't address it then if you don't address it the water leak then of course it's gonna be mold for sure but see something do something, say something. Very good, I like that a lot. So let's see Rachel is there anything that Cheryl missed that we want to touch on? We've got like another what eight minutes and I just want to be sure Rachel you've been able to share all of the services that first onsite provides. Yeah, so Cheryl pretty much touched up on the full spectrum. So a lot of what we've been doing of course because we live in Hawaii and we actually haven't had any hurricanes or anything disasters recently to that magnitude. A lot of it is, you know meeting with our clients and preaching and kind of reminding them that preparation preparedness ahead of time is important. Having a plan, you know within your own household and within your own work family is important. And for our sake in our internal company because we are preparing or we work with people and properties we also have internal family plan within our organization that we follow. So it's definitely kind of, you know preaching that and kind of explaining and letting the different client base know that this is what we do this is what you should be doing covering basis as well. But the full spectrum I mean the bread and butter of the work so the restoration side the water damage just letting the fires the smoke and mold and all that that's kind of pretty much the wheelhouse. And in addition to that with the COVID cleaning and the disinfecting cleaning the biohazard and the trauma I mean that kind of comes along with the unexpectedness that comes out the different properties, you know depending on whether they're retail or hospitality and healthcare or commercial properties I mean you kind of see it across the board and then of course it's sticking to industry standards as well. So not only our own internal in you know standards that we have as a company and what we represent but it's also sticking to the integrity of what the industry standard is to. Yeah, I also wanted to add Cheryl, thank you Rachel I also wanted to add that we do have the capabilities to do the reconstruction of any kind of demo that or if we have to remove an area we have the capabilities we have a construction team that is very good at their jobs. So even if there's projects that the restaurants are looking at doing or the retails are doing that's kind of like the side jobs of our industry. So we have all the emergency services but we are general contractors as well. So there are opportunities to do some renovation works for the retailers or the restaurant services. That's just something that's kind of on the side and to know that we do our own we do our own work and we do call in subcontractors for larger jobs but primarily first onsite is that we want to be first onsite to any of your situations or challenges and we want to work as a partner not just as a contractor not just as a vendor but we do lunch and learns we can you know sit in on a staff meeting and educate your staff on what does mold look like you know what does mold look like and how they as employees and partners in the business can help keep the business going keep it healthy and those types of things like take ownership of it like it's not just the I'm going to clock in and work today but no this is because we all know in the restaurant industry we are at the restaurant probably more than we see our families that is our family that's our second family that's what I always loved about the restaurant business you know you get through that rush and you're like yeah we did it you know everybody go home be safe come back tomorrow type of thing so I'm just really fortunate and very appreciative Cheryl to be with the Hawaii Restaurant Association I'm glad my my counterpart Rachel is able to join me today she is the the queen of all I follow her and her footsteps but she she helps me out a lot and you anyone can call us anytime and ask any questions the the most we can say is yes we can do that or you know what we may not be able to do that but here's somebody who can't so think of us as a partner think of us as a part of the family as well and not just a vendor that's looking to make a buck because if you guys are in business the the the better our economy is as a whole and you know families are working and families are getting fed families are going shopping so very thankful for the economy of the restaurant restaurant owners and retail owners so thank you so much for the time today thank you Cheryl and Rachel do you have any closing statements before I close our show I just want to leave with one statement would be it's better to know us and not need us versus need us and not know us so again first on site property restoration we don't wish on any of the unexpected events but we're certainly here if you need us thank you thank you for having us thank you and I want to thank first on site for being a member of the Hawaii Restaurant Association and today again we're talking about something very important partnering up with other businesses such as first on site should that emergency should that disaster that unfortunate incident happen you already have their name you already know who they are and they're familiar with your location your operation and your your office structure or your restaurant structure again Hawaii Restaurant Association is the voice of Hawaii's restaurants and food service industry if you have any questions please feel free to reach out to me at info at HawaiiRestaurant.org thank you and we'll see you in two weeks thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii if you like what we do please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo you can also follow us on Facebook Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn and donate to us at thinktechhawaii.com Mahalo