Public Employee Press

Sandy left safety hazards for members

Hurricane Sandy's fierce winds and floodwaters damaged office and commercial buildings, including the worksites of many DC 37 members. The union's Safety and Health Dept. responded to members' concerns with inspections, information and advice.

"It was difficult to connect with city agencies because they were also uprooted by the storm," said Principal Program Coordinator Guille Mejia. "One of the biggest challenges was to get the city to give us a list of the facilities damaged by the storm and share their reconstruction plans," Mejia said.

Emergency Medical Service stations were important areas of concern. "You could see the water line at Station 4 in Lower Manhattan," she said. "The city and federal agencies all have guidelines on mold, but they are not consistent, and the Fire Dept. issued its own, including rules for assessing results to make sure decontamination was effective, Mejia said.

The work of determining the conditions and hazards members faced was underway by the week of Nov. 5. Calls came in from the Human Resources Administration, which was providing services for devastated communities in the Rockaways and Coney Island. "Our members were helping people without electricity, shelter or food," Mejia said. "They were doing this work in what we called 'pop- up' workstations, with equipment and furniture that was just thrown together. They had to deal with mold growth and sand - conditions were just not the best."

Fire safety systems were non-existent or non-operational. The union succeeded in getting HRA to identify and train a fire watch at each site. HRA also agreed to close off certain rooms and to discard boxes of materials that were contaminated with mold. At one location, "We could see mold growing in the room where employees ate lunch," Mejia said. HRA agreed to do the mold removal at night and on weekends.

The Dept. of Environmental Protection "showed initiative by doing an assessment of the workers to determine if there were any exposures to asbestos or other toxins, issuing personal protective equipment and sharing monitoring reports with us," Mejia said. She questioned some of DEP's methodology, particularly the monitoring of the debris hauled to designated dump sites, such as Floyd Bennett Field. In response, the DEP set up fixed monitoring stations and is preserving its records.

To protect members from hazards at city agencies, Safety and Health Dept. staff monitor and address conditions and problems as they arise.