Marina Dock Age, November/December 1998

Working with Your Local Emergency Officials
by Gene Spinazola

Several years ago, during a conference presentation, I asked for a show of hands from all the marina managers in the room who had a business plan. My intent was to show the importance placed on the business plan, and of course the next question was going to be, “How many have an emergency plan?” To my surprise, I didn’t get many raised hands for the business plan, so the second question came out as, “How many have an insurance plan?”

How do you plan to handle emergencies in your marina? You will have emergencies, and right or wrong, you will have to handle these situations, but some advanced planning will improve the final outcome. Work with your emergency responders, develop rapport with them and openly share important information about your marina.

Depending on your location, there are five or six major emergencies that you as the marina manager may be faced with at any time. Four of those are surprise events for which you have little or no time to prepare. For example, a tornado is one event for which there may be little or no warning. A hurricane, on the other hand, happens with some significant lead time, and different levels of preparation can occur as the storm is approaching. Your response to all emergencies, however, must be correct and not left to chance. For that reason, emergency planning must be done well in advance, and all parties involved need to understand and practice the plan.

I can’t tell you how many times I have heard marina managers say, “I’m not going to invite the fire department to my marina because they will find something wrong.” Think of it this way: If they find something wrong at your marina, there probably is something wrong at your marina. It may not mean that you have to fix it right this minute, but over time, you may need to work on and resolve that problem.

A simple and common problem that I have encountered in reviewing many marina fires is the fact that the fire department is not familiar with the property and unprepared for the realities of a multiple-boat fire. The second part of that equation is that the marina staff members are also not familiar with the property and are unprepared to assist the fire department.   Continue »