Mold Reporter

By Frank Headon (First Restoration Services, Charlotte, NC)

A pipe burst early on a Wednesday morning in a Washington, D.C., office building spilling 500,000 gallons of water onto the seventh floor and drenching the lower levels. In the process, it flooded one of the key disaster relief processing centers for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and caused major damage in state and local government offices.

The 2.5 inch pipe ruptured in a seventh floor office suite where workers had installed a new sprinkler system. FEMA officials said that after the pipe was installed Tuesday, the workers turned the water on and went home. Then around midnight, a security guard on the first floor noticed water raining down. One maintenance worker said that when he arrived on the scene, he saw water pouring through the first-floor ceiling like “a rushing river.”

Wednesday, Day 1

On Wednesday at approximately 2:00 pm, First Restoration Services (FRS) was asked to mobilize and provide mitigation services to the facility. We arrived onsite at 6:00 am Thursday and provided 25 days of continuous 24-hour drying and mitigation services.

Sam Bergman, president of the Rolyn Companies called the Charlotte office of FRS at approximately 2:00 pm on Wednesday. Sam alerted Mark Headen and Mark paged Frank Headen. FRS began an immediate mobilization and loaded all needed equipment and supplies. A convoy left Charlotte at 6:30 pm on Wednesday and arrived onsite early Thursday morning. Frank Headen was in Chicago and flew to Reagan National Airport. He arrived at 5:15 pm and was picked up by Ron Bergman, vice president of Rolyn Companies, and taken to the job site.

A loss assessment of the water damage was performed using standard procedures established by the Institute of Inspection, Cleaning and Restoration Certification (IICRC) in S500 and other industry standards as appropriate. The collection of data included a thorough onsite inspection of the facility using environmental temperature/humidity and moisture content instrumentation; interviews with the facility manager and tenants; a review of documents and drawings of the structure; and an onsite inspection of a sister building located on the same property. After analyzing this collected information, a standard for temperature/humidity levels and moisture content of all materials was established.

The information gathered was further used to formulate a mitigation plan. This plan included:

• Identifying and evaluating health and safety issues;
• Determining protection levels for contents and equipment
• Determining the extent of moisture intrusion
• Evaluating and assessing structural materials
• Evaluating the HVAC systems
• Documenting pre-existing conditions not related to the current loss
• Establishing drying goals
• Determining the overall scope of the mitigation process to support the total restoration plan.

Based on the above procedures, a proposal was provided to remove all water, and to dry the structure and contents to its normal state of equilibrium using desiccant and refrigeration-based dehumidification systems and specially designed air moving and filtering equipment.

Thursday, Day 2

Equipment and generators were set up around the perimeter of the building. Desiccant dehumidifiers (300 cfm) were taken up the freight elevators and installed on the 4^th, 5^th, 6^th, and 7^th floors. Fans and air movers were installed to create a vortex-drying chamber on each floors.

Special attention was given to the Maryland Department of Social Services area, the FEMA floors, the Health Center, and the Community College area. Water removal continued on all floors. Wall assessment continued, vinyl base was removed and drywall was opened up in damage areas. Water was removed from inside the metal base plates in the walls. Approximately 75 Hobos (temperature and humidity recorders) were installed throughout the building. A watch team was set up on two twelve-hour shifts to monitor the drying equipment and continually adjust the air movement.

Friday, Day 3

All drying equipment was installed and operating at designed levels. The ideal situation would have been to start on the 7^th floor and then move down floor by floor. However, access was severely limited due to cubicles, furniture and equipment throughout all floors. Moisture mapping and assessment was done continually.

Due to the different federal, state, and local office occupancy, we had a large number of certified industrial hygiene firms involved. Morris French, Ph.D., and Timothy French of Micro Air Inc., represented the insurance carrier. Dr. Eugene Cole with Dyncorp represented FRS Inc. Martel Labs Inc. represented the Maryland Department of Human Resources. FEMA provided their own staff environmental scientist, Terry F. Carraway, Jr., CIH, CSP, and also plus retained Applied Environmental Inc. French acted as the point environmental scientist and we coordinated all other personnel and firms around this organizational structure. There were lots of discussions and meetings regarding air quality issues and drying protocol but this turned into one of the most cooperative and professional jobs we have ever been involved in.

Days 4 through 7

Overall damage assessment continued. We to open walls to dry out the interior as access was gained by having cubicles removed. Because the cubicles that back up to the center core of the building had not been removed on the 6^th and 7^th floors, we could not remove the carpet under the back legs or access the core walls. This was a potential problem area. We lowered the humidity on the both floors to 15 percent to control the wet wall environment.

Vinyl base and wall opening continued in the social service and health clinic areas on the ground and first floors. We re-evaluated the college area on the 2^nd floor and moved equipment around so that we could continue to dry while allowing them to resume classes the next Monday. We installed additional air scrubbers on all floors at the request of the hygienists, and started removing wet insulation from HVAC ducting. We were still waiting on decisions regarding removal and drying of wet documents and papers. Assessed exterior wall construction and damage with French on 3^rd through 7^th floor.

The decision was made not to open plaster columns and walls until asbestos clearance was received. FEMA wanted to keep their check printing and mailroom facility operating, which involved isolating and containing the whole area. This area was now dry and under control environmentally. We engineered, then installed new steel stud walls covered with plastic shrink wrap around the whole perimeter of the mailroom/printing area. We provided two air locks to control access and installed equipment to scrub the air and provide positive pressure inside the containment area, which is approximately 80′ x 100′. This allowed FEMA to operate this facility using three shifts, 24 hours a day.

Days 8 through 15

We were notified that all asbestos issues were resolved, with none detected. Damage assessment teams continue mapping moisture content of materials and documenting temperature and humidity. We removed drying equipment from the Social Services area on the ground floor and re-set the desiccant equipment to maximize drying with available power. We opened up a sample of the exterior wall in the 4^th floor. This allowed us to develop a procedure with French of Micro Air to open exterior walls and columns, and to develop a detailed tracking system for mapping the moisture content of drywall and plaster throughout the entire building. We updated safety and security procedures and had mandatory meetings weekly.

As the concrete floor slabs began to dry, we noticed a pattern of round wet circles on each floor. As ceiling tile was removed, we found a series of continuing water drips in a similar pattern. After further investigation, it was discovered that every floor slab except the ground floor had a system of in-slab “walker floor ducts.” These were installed when the original building was constructed. During a later remodeling, 1 1/2″ to 2″ of concrete topping was poured on each floor to cover all of this. Water had filled almost all of these ducts and was the source of the dripping.

Locating the old access plates, chipping the concrete topping off and accessing these ducts became a major undertaking. As we opened each floor we had to determine if any of the wiring in these ducts were live or had been disconnected. After electrical clearance, we vacuumed all the water out we could. We then installed high-pressure fans to blow the water from the low spots to the other end and then sucked the water out. After removing approximately 1,000 gallons per floor, we installed ducts from the desiccants to pressurize each duct and dry it out.

Days 16 through 21

Moisture mapping and documenting of temperatures and humidity conditions continued. Each floor utilizes an open work environment divided by cubicles which contain power outlets as an integral part of the cubicle system. As cubicles were removed, we lost more and more plugs. To provide the power outlets needed we had to install temporary electrical drops tied into each floor’s electrical room.

We developed a “quick look” demolition plan at the request of Sam Bergman of The Rolyn Companies. They would be doing all reconstruction work and needed to develop a time line to let all tenants know when they could reoccupy their space. We had our 45′ document-drying trailer onsite and began drying documents from the Department of Social Services.

A review of drying progress on the 7^th floor showed that all walls were dry except one bay hotspot.

We began removing equipment that was focused on the exterior walls. Floor 2 was still having problems with water seeping from voids in concrete into “walker duct.” We met with Tim French and discussed relative humidity, moisture contents of materials and drying of the structure and contents as it applies to this building. He was confidant that we had positive control of the environmental conditions of the building. There were no additional drips between floors, an indication that we were making significant headway in solving the “walker duct” problem. We set up document drying chambers on the 4^th floor to dry FEMA documents.

Days 22 To 23

Damage assessment teams began final evaluation and equipment was cycled down through the building as required. We continued to work on final moisture content equilibrium, and removed desiccant dehumidifiers from floors 4 and 5. Floors 2 and 3 “walker ducts” were evaluated for rate of drying, and equipment repositioned form final drying. Social Services and FEMA documents were reboxed. Equipment trailers were prepared as part of demobilization process.

Day 24 and 25

We began the demobilization process and the removal of drying equipment from the building. Moisture content readings, and temperature/humidity readings for the entire structure were finalized. The balance of FEMA documents were packed and returned to the 6th floor. We replaced HEPA filters on 31 Phoenix air scrubbers with a 4-stage filtration system to handle paint fumes, new carpet offgassing and dust and particulate matter generated during the reconstruction process. As of Saturday, November 18, all equipment had been demobilized and re-packed with the exception of 31 air scrubbers, which were to remain until the building was reoccupied.

The total floor space mitigated and dried was approximately 250,000 square feet. Due to the nature of occupancy, high-level security and safety protocols were continually in place, but 7,776 man-hours were expended without a single reportable accident or security violation. The final documentation report was approximately 250 pages and included graphs, continuous measurement records of moisture content of structure and contents.

We had the good fortune to be part of an exceptional team of professionals. The industrial hygienists, the building owners and managers, and restoration and reconstruction company all worked together on a very difficult project with high profile occupants to accomplish a very short building recovery.

Frank Headon, CR, CMH, WLS is president of First Restoration Services Inc., a multi-tiered restoration company out of Charlotte, NC., that does catastrophe response for insurance and business clients world wide (800-743-6717).

(Reprinted with permission from the publisher of Indoor Environment Connections, Volume 3, Issue 5, March 2002.)