The working ERP for property managers. One plan per building — filled in, posted, and drilled before anything goes wrong.
Four steps per building, about thirty minutes.
Almost everything that makes a property loss expensive — the delay, the guessing, the scramble for a valve or a phone number — is decided before anything happens. An emergency response plan settles those decisions now, on a calm day, one building at a time.
Fill one in per building — walk it with your maintenance lead. Most answers are found standing in the mechanical room.
Print it — copies live in the office, the mechanical room, and with the after-hours answering service.
Brief the team — maintenance, leasing, and after-hours staff know where it lives and what the first three moves are.
Review it once a year — and after every staff, vendor, or system change.
Download the Fillable PDF: /site-media/emergency-response-plan-uwrg-missouri-city.pdf
If anyone is in danger, call 911 first. Everything in this plan comes after people are safe.
The first 60 minutes: water is loose in the building.
The most common commercial loss, and the one where minutes translate directly into dollars. Whoever is on-site runs this list top to bottom.
Clear people out — affected units and the floor below. Send elevators to the lobby and shut them down if water is anywhere near shafts.
Stop the source — fixture valve first, riser or main if you must.
Kill power to wet areas, if safe — breakers only. Never touch a wet panel; wait for the electrician.
Call restoration and the plumber — mitigation starts now, not after the adjuster.
Notify the affected stack — send the saved first-message template.
Start the log — wide photos, standing-water shots, times, names.
Do
Move contents up and out of the water — dry ground floor first, salvage second.
Open doors and interior windows to move air through wet areas.
Protect elevator pits and electrical rooms first; they are the expensive square feet.
Meet the crew with keys, access codes, and this plan.
Do Not
Do not run the building HVAC through soaked areas — it spreads moisture into dry units.
Do not let residents back into saturated units to "grab a few things."
Do not vacuum standing water with shop equipment near energized outlets.
Do not wait for the adjuster to authorize drying — most policies require you to prevent further damage.
After the fire department leaves — fire & smoke
Secure the scene — board-up and fencing the same day; you are liable for an open building.
Leave the power off — no re-energizing tripped panels until an electrician clears them.
Shut down HVAC — soot travels through shared ducts into untouched units.
Call the insurer today — smoke residue turns corrosive within days; note the time you called.
Do: Photograph everything before anything is moved. Keep a sign-in log of everyone who enters the scene. Ask the fire department for the incident report number before they leave.
Do not: Let residents in to collect belongings before clearance. Wipe soot with water or household cleaners — it sets the stain. Run any appliance that was in the smoke field.
Mold
Fix the moisture first — mold is a symptom. Find and stop the water before anything else.
Isolate the unit — close doors, seal shared returns, keep traffic out.
Measure it — bigger than about 10 sq ft (roughly a door) calls for professional assessment and containment.
Check the neighbors — inspect units sharing the wall, stack, or HVAC zone.
Do: Photograph and measure the area before treatment. Document resident complaints and your response times, in writing.
Do not: Paint or caulk over it — it returns through the finish. Point fans at it; airflow spreads spores into clean areas. Demolish before containment is up.
Where everything shuts off.
One copy of this page per building, in your printed plan. “Location” means something a stranger could follow — riser room, B1, north wall — not “you know, the closet.” Document these for every property you manage:
Domestic water main
Sprinkler riser / control valve (riser room number)
Fire alarm panel (who has the code?)
Gas main shutoff
Main electrical / house panel
Floor & unit subpanels (are they labeled?)
Elevator machine room & shutoff
Boiler / central water heater
HVAC / rooftop unit disconnects
Sump / lift station (battery backup?)
Tag the valves, then photograph them. A zip-tag on the riser beats a diagram in a drawer. Every maintenance hire should physically find each of these in their first week.
Who decides, and who gets woken up.
The most expensive minutes of a loss are spent chasing a signature. Settle the order of calls and the spending authority now — before anything happens.
On-site / community manager — first call
Maintenance supervisor
Regional / portfolio manager
Owner or asset manager
After-hours answering service
Pre-authorize now. A signed work authorization on file with your restoration vendor means drying starts the moment the call ends — not after three people approve an email at 3 a.m. Ask your UWRG office for their pre-authorization form.
United Water Restoration Group of Missouri City — our restoration partner
One number, 24/7 — water, fire, mold, and rebuild. Mitigation can start before the adjuster ever sees the file.
Call (281) 867-6610
Keep this list current for every building: insurance agent/broker, insurance claims line, 24-hr plumber, electrician, fire protection/alarm company, elevator service, HVAC/mechanical, roofer, board-up & site security, water/gas/electric utilities, city after-hours public works, and your answering service.
Residents hear one voice.
Rumors move faster than drying equipment. Decide now how the building hears from you, and who does the talking: mass text/robocall, resident portal, email blast, door notices to affected floors first, lobby & elevator signage, and direct calls to commercial tenants. Name one voice to speak for the property and note any residents with mobility, medical, or language needs so the crew knows before they knock.
Draft the first message now. Two sentences — what happened, what you’re doing, when they’ll hear more. Save it as a template so the 2 a.m. version of you only has to fill in the blanks.
Protect first. Photograph everything.
When water is moving, crews protect these before anything else — list where each one is in your plan: main electrical room, elevator machine room & pits, telecom/server/fire pump rooms, records/files/leases, model or show units and amenity spaces, and any owner-designated priorities (ask about art, equipment, inventory).
Wide, then close — whole room from the door, then the damage.
Before anything moves — adjusters pay on what they can see.
Serial plates & meters — equipment tags, meter readings, panel labels.
What happens after you call.
Most people have never been through this before. Here is the shape of it, so nothing that happens next is a surprise.
You call — a person answers and asks what happened, whether anyone is hurt, and whether the source has been stopped.
A crew is dispatched — you'll be told who is coming and what to do until they arrive.
Inspection — technicians identify the source, map how far moisture or damage has traveled, and check the areas you can't see.
Documentation — readings, photos, and scope notes are recorded, the record your insurance claim is built on.
Mitigation — extraction, containment, removal of unsalvageable materials, and drying equipment set in place.
Monitoring — equipment stays and readings are taken until the structure is measurably dry, not until it looks dry.
Rebuild — walls, flooring, cabinetry, paint. Putting the property back.
What to ask any restoration company
Are your technicians IICRC certified?
Do you handle the rebuild, or only the cleanup?
Will you document the loss for my insurance claim?
Is someone reachable after hours, or only during business hours?
Who is my point of contact from start to finish?
A plan nobody has opened is a rumor.
Twenty minutes a quarter keeps this document true. Most of it doubles as maintenance you already owe the building.
New hires walk the shutoffs in week one — physically find every valve and panel, not on a map, in the building.
Exercise the main and riser valves once a year — valves that never turn seize.
Run one tabletop drill a year — pick a scenario and talk the team through it.
Re-brief the answering service when anything changes — they can only follow the escalation list they have.
Test the resident notification system twice a year — a test message in April beats a failed one in a flood.
Update this plan when: there’s a staff change, vendor change, renovation, system change — or annually, whichever comes first.
When you know who to call, there's no need for panic.
United Water Restoration Group of Missouri City responds to water, fire, and mold damage around the clock — and rebuilds what the damage took. IICRC-certified technicians, a locally owned team, and one point of contact from the first call through the final walkthrough, across every property you manage.
Call (281) 867-6610
Download the Fillable PDF: /site-media/emergency-response-plan-uwrg-missouri-city.pdf
