Redmond Hill Rises Above Flood Conditions
Wednesday, January 15, 2020
Attention: All Associates
The E-Team at Redmond Hill in Redmond, WA, shared the following story about their "December to remember." Thanks to Toni Polet for documenting this exciting account of the team's adventures:
"Friday, December 20, 2019, started like any other winter day in Seattle after heavy rain poured all night long. What seemed to be just another rainy day turned into a day for the record books.
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Miguel Franco, Redmond Hill Maintenance Supervisor, started his morning feeling under the weather and was thinking about taking a rare sick day but thought the better of it as he knew he had a lot of service requests that had been rolling in all week as well as a number of turns. The team was short-staffed due to employee vacations, comp days, employees out sick, and the holidays coming. On the 20th, Redmond Hill had 106 work orders and six turns to work on for the day.
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The calls started rolling in just after 6 am to the emergency pager that Redmond Hill was flooding. All of the heavy rain that was coming down has started entering apartments. Upon arriving at Redmond Hill, Miguel saw how bad it was getting, made a plan, and started calling in his team for all hands on deck to tackle what they could as more heavy rain was expected throughout the day.
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The calls started rolling in just after 6 am to the emergency pager that Redmond Hill was flooding. All of the heavy rain that was coming down has started entering apartments. Upon arriving at Redmond Hill, Miguel saw how bad it was getting, made a plan, and started calling in his team for all hands on deck to tackle what they could as more heavy rain was expected throughout the day.
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After assessing the situation, calling vendors to come to start extracting water from multiple apartments, he headed out to find a company to rent sump pumps from and arranged the rental of 10 blowers, 10 dehumidifiers, shovels, and supplies before rental companies started to run out.
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The Redmond Hill team pulled together as one and rose to the occasion. The team gathered together, suited up with rain gear and shovels in hand, and started digging trenches to help guide water away from as many buildings as they could. Water was creeping closer to multiple building decks and threatening to enter apartments.
After assessing the situation, calling vendors to come to start extracting water from multiple apartments, he headed out to find a company to rent sump pumps from and arranged the rental of 10 blowers, 10 dehumidifiers, shovels, and supplies before rental companies started to run out.
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The Redmond Hill team pulled together as one and rose to the occasion. The team gathered together, suited up with rain gear and shovels in hand, and started digging trenches to help guide water away from as many buildings as they could. Water was creeping closer to multiple building decks and threatening to enter apartments.
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The team took only short breaks to come in swap into some dry clothes and shoes, warm up, grab a bite to eat, before heading back out in the rain and mud.
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On top of the weather challenges, Essex also closed on a new property, Pure Redmond, on the 20th as well. Miguel had already committed to helping out with the takeover of the property that day, so before the end of the long day, he headed over to pick up the emergency pager and keys for Pure Redmond. Then he returned to head out in the rain again.
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Miguel knew he would be coming in on his day off on Saturday to help more at Redmond Hill, but didn’t know that Pure Redmond, the new property, would be the next to flood.
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Over the weekend, Miguel started getting calls that that parking garage was flooded, and two elevators had to be shut down, creating a situation where residents who needed to get out of apartments had to use stairs.
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Miguel is an example of a true star for having to handle not only his own property's flood emergency but also helping out at another, all while being under the weather. He is a team player who always goes the extra mile to help others.
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By the end of the record-setting rainy day, Redmond Hill had 12 apartments flood (2 while the residents out of the country on vacation), but there would have been many more flooded homes affected and items damaged if the team hadn't banded together to act quickly. The Redmond Hill whole team is amazing!!
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By the end of the record-setting rainy day, Redmond Hill had 12 apartments flood (2 while the residents out of the country on vacation), but there would have been many more flooded homes affected and items damaged if the team hadn't banded together to act quickly. The Redmond Hill whole team is amazing!!
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Here are a few pictures of the flood conditions the team faced during this action-packed weekend."
Wednesday, January 15, 2020 - 14:26
Last updated:
January 29, 2020