Man, what a weekend- howling wind. extreme cold weather and no power.
Some of Americana Finnmark residents lost total power, partial power and I believe everyone lost heat this past weekend.
The electrical power problem was a PEPCO problem and was resolved the following day(Monday)
The staff of Americana Finnmark had the hot water problems resolved by Monday afternoon.
Thanks for their quick work.
Now some hints for the future-
1). If there is a power failure call PEPCO first- do not call CMI or members of the Board of Directors or previous members of the Board- there is nothing we can do- we are not magicians and more than likely we are having the same problems.
2).If you call CMI, call them only once- do not keep calling them. They got the message the first time and they know what to do.
3). There is no need to call Heidi after hours or on weekends.
She is not in the office- and she will be getting calls from CMI and probably from Cornel and Billy. There is no need to call her office if there is only a machine to answer.
4). Use your head, do not panic and be polite to whomever you speak to.
5). We have an excellent staff and they will do their best to take care of any problems .
6). When you see our staff walking around or in the office- be sure to "Thank Them" for the work that they do, and thank them for keeping everything in running order.
We have an excellent staff and I am sure they do not get enough thanks from the residents.
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6 comments:
Thank you to the AF and Pepco staff for quickly resolving the outages of this past weekend.
I was very glad to hear a message from Pepco about the area outage when I called and tracked the progress of the repair on their Internet website.
Though I contacted Pepco, I contacted AF and CMI first because I wasn't exactly sure what the problem was and I am sure many of my neighbors had the same problem. When my family and I decided to go to a hotel, I checked on my neighbors because I wasn't sure how much information everyone had and I know some are infirmed.
I would hope that AF and CMI would consider having such a message when they are aware of a community outage. Having this kind of information quickly will go a long way in making residents more comfortable.
Thanks to Bob and Anonymous above for the information. I too called CMI as soon as I heard the "boom" in the boiler room on Sunday. CMI was very helpful throughout the morning and early afternoon on Monday by giving me a general update each time I called.
Calling PEPCO directly did not work well for me. It was an automated system that required an account number in order to get anywhere. I ended up relying on a neighbor who braved it out for detailed updates on the status of power, water, and heat.
What would have been reassuring for me to hear when I called AF is a message that: 1) conveyed an understanding of the issue, 2) offered contact information for updates (PEPCO in this case), and 3) provideed an update (perhaps with time noted) on the situation.
Thanks for the Blogspace, Bob.
I, too, called CMI first because I have had the same experience with Pepco that they only have an automated system and wont talk to you if you don't have your own account number.
I also noticed that the online Pepco map showed no icon over our community starting around 9:30 am but I took it from the messages we got by e-mail that the problem continued beyond that time. I wanted to call CMI again to be sure that Pepco really did know they were supposed to still be on the scene but I resisted the temptation :)
I called CMI because we had electricity, but not heat and hot water, so i was confused - also, I did't know if anyone else was experiencing it. they gave me the update I needed and the emails the next day were helpful. I considered putting a note on our bulletin board with the info for the rest of the neighbors, but didn't venture back outside. I should have because I ran into a neighbor at the bus stop the next day who still didn't know anything other than that she was VERY COLD!
Thanks, Bob for your post and for this forum I wholeheartedly agree that the AF staff is very responsive and worked very hard to get this issue resolved. My comment has to specifically do with the information flow or lack thereof that CMI could have helped with.
I left my apartment on Sunday at 8 am and didn't come back until about 7:30 pm. As I was walking back from the metro, it seemed like every other building was completely without power. I then came to my unit and saw that I still had partial power -- unfortunately, no power in bedroom or kitchen.
Before I called CMI and AF, I actually called Pepco. It was almost impossible to get a "live" person and the automated outage reporting line asks for your phone number or account number associate with the outage. As you know, this information is impossible to provide as individual owners since our power is coupled with the condo fee.
I then looked on their outage map that night at 8p.m. and saw that the outage area that covers the AF complex only affected "less than 5 people" according to the online map.
I called the AF office to simply get CMI's number and noticed that the answering machine was not updated to reflect any sort of maintenance emergency / power outage -- so I didn't think anything of it.
When I called CMI, I reported a partial power outage, no heat or hot water for my unit. CMI then stated that the Americana Finnmark was "flagged" for something -- she read it to herself and said, oh your issues are not what it is being flagged for. I will have to forward your request to the "on-call" person and they will get back to you shortly. I never heard from anyone at CMI about this.
Being that CMI and the staff at AF are generally responsive, I thought that the issue would have been resolved in fairly short order. Or, at the very least, I would have gotten a call back to let me know that the issue is out of their hands and it is a complex-wide problem. Since I did not get a call back and worked on my previous experiences, I spent the night in my unit figuring that the heat, hot water and power would be turned on by the morning.
Given that this storm is no one's fault and that everyone was operating in good faith, I just feel that CMI / management (generally speaking) could do a better job of communicating complex-wide issues. My recommendations are as follows:
1) Utilize the AF email listserve
I just learned that CMI / Heidi does not receive messages from that email account. Whomever is controlling that listserve can also send out a general email blast -- similar to what happened on Monday -- to let folks know that it is a complex-wide problem. This could have easily been done during the day on Sunday since it appears that folks were having issues since the beginning of the day. This gives people the information they need to make an informed decision.
2) Give accurate information to the folks who field CMI calls
It seems that folks had varying experiences with CMI reps. Unlike others, my CMI rep did not tell me that it was a complex-wide issue and that Pepco had been notified. Had I known this, I would have probably made alternate arrangements.
3) Post information on bulletin boards
My understanding is that there is an on-call person who helps field after hours and weekend emergencies. I believe that loss of power can qualify as such. Simply stapling something on a bulletin board would help to disseminate information.
It appears that CMI needs a better way to communicate to the residents when an emergency occurs.
The person doing the listserve may not have all the information.
Perhaps CMI can have some kind of phone system that provides a number for each of their properties- you know the type- push "1" for this property.push"2" for Americana Finnmark etc etc.
This way when CMI has an answer or solution to the emergency they can leave a messagefr the residents.
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