Tabletop Tuesday: Edition 4 - Severe Weather Is Already on the Way. What's Your Next Move?

Jun 13

Here's what most property teams get wrong about severe weather response.

They think the emergency starts when the storm hits.

It doesn't. It starts the moment the watch is issued and the question becomes: what do we do with the next 45 minutes before this gets serious?

The window between a severe thunderstorm watch and a tornado warning confirmed over your area is where prepared teams and unprepared teams separate permanently. That window is where your shelter locations readiness get confirmed or assumed. Where your tenant communication goes out on time or too late. Where your TVs get switched to the weather channel or stay on ESPN.

By the time the warning drops, you're executing. Not deciding.

Welcome back to Tabletop Tuesday - the recurring format where I drop a real building scenario, walk the decision framework, and surface the gaps that only show up when you actually try to answer the questions out loud.

This month: severe weather.

The Scenario

It's 2:10pm on a Thursday in late spring.

The National Weather Service has issued a Severe Thunderstorm Watch for your county until 8:00pm. Your building is a six-story Class A office with approximately 340 occupants across seven tenants. Your chief engineer is on site. Your security officer is at the front desk. You have a property management software platform with a mass notification module you've tested once.

Radar shows a significant storm cell moving northeast at approximately 40 mph. Estimated arrival at your location: 55 minutes.

The NWS has flagged this cell for potential rotation. No warning has been issued yet but the language in the watch bulletin says "conditions are favorable."

Stop here. Before you do anything else - what are your first three actions in the next ten minutes?

Phase 1 - The Watch Window

This is the phase most teams waste. A watch means conditions are favorable - it is not a false alarm, and it is not the time to wait and see.

Confirm your shelter locations are actually usable.

Your interior corridors, ground-floor core areas, and stairwells are your designated shelter spaces. They're also where people leave boxes, store equipment temporarily, and stage vendor deliveries. Before any warning drops, someone physically walks those locations and confirms they are clear, accessible, and ready to hold people.

This is not a theoretical step. A shelter location full of construction materials or tenant storage is not a shelter location. Find out now - not at the moment you're directing 340 people toward it.

Switch the lobby TVs to local weather coverage.

This is a small action with a large signal. When occupants walk through the lobby and see the local news weather radar on screen, they understand without a single word from management that the situation is being monitored actively. It changes the atmosphere from oblivious to aware. It also gives you a passive communication channel - if the storm track shifts or a warning drops, people in your lobby see it in real time.

Your engineer or security officer handles this. It takes three minutes.

Send your first tenant communication - the heads-up.

Before any warning is issued, your tenants should hear from you first. Not from the emergency alert on their phone. Not from a colleague who just checked radar. From you.

"We are monitoring an active severe weather watch for our area until 8:00pm. Our team is tracking the storm and we are prepared to implement shelter-in-place procedures if a warning is issued. We will communicate directly with additional instructions if the situation escalates. Shelter locations for this building are [locations]. No action is required at this time."

That message is calm. It demonstrates awareness. It tells tenants where to go before they need to go there - so the first time they hear the shelter location is not during a PA announcement over a siren.

Phase 2 - The Warning

The NWS has issued a Tornado Warning for your county. Radar confirmed rotation 8 miles southwest, moving northeast at 35 mph.

You have approximately 13 minutes.

This is not a decision point. This is an execution point.

The PA goes first. Not email. Not a text blast. Not a conversation with your engineer about whether it's really that serious.

"Attention building occupants - this is not a drill. A tornado warning has been issued for our area. Please move immediately to designated shelter areas: interior corridors on floors one and two, away from windows and exterior walls. Do not use elevators. Move now and remain in place until further notice."

Clear. Specific. Immediate. The word "now" appears once and means exactly what it says.

Your engineer secures the building. Roof access locked. Exterior mechanical areas confirmed clear. If your building has automated storm shutters or roll-down security grilles on lobby glass, they activate now. He is not running a full systems check - he is securing the envelope and getting himself to shelter.

Your security officer manages the lobby. This is the most likely place you'll find people who didn't hear the announcement, are heading toward the exit to "get to their car before it gets bad," or are simply standing at the window watching the sky. That last group is a life-safety problem. Get them moving.

You are in the shelter location. Not managing from your office. Not on the phone with ownership. In the shelter, visible to your tenants, calm and present. Leadership during a severe weather event is largely physical presence. People regulate off the person who appears to be in charge. Be that person.

The accountability question: Do you know how many people are in your building right now? Not approximately. Do you have a method - even a rough one for knowing whether everyone has made it to shelter?

Most teams don't. Most teams find this gap during the drill, not during the event. That's exactly why you run the drill.

Phase 3 - Sheltering

The storm is overhead. Winds are audible. You have heard impacts - debris, hail, or both against the building envelope.

Your job right now is communication and calm.

Update the shelter. Verbally, directly: "We are in active shelter. The storm is passing over the building. Stay in place, away from stairwell doors. We will update you the moment it is safe to move."

Do not speculate on damage. Do not say "I think that was just hail." You don't know yet. What you know is that everyone is in shelter and you will assess once the storm has passed. That is the full message.

The silence after is also your job. The storm will pass. There will be a period - sometimes 2 minutes, sometimes 10 - where it's quiet but the all clear has not been confirmed. This is when people start moving toward exits on their own. Someone is going to announce that it's over. Someone is going to walk toward the window. Someone is going to head to the lobby to check on their car.

Hold the shelter. The all-clear is yours to give. It does not come from a tenant.

Phase 4 - The All-Clear

Before you release anyone from shelter, three things happen:

Your engineer does a rapid building walk. This is not a full damage assessment - it is a 5-minute pass through the stairwells, mechanical areas, and top floor to confirm there is no immediate structural concern, active water intrusion, or hazard blocking egress. If he finds something significant, you do not release the shelter.

You confirm weather status. The storm has passed your location, but is the warning still in effect? Is there a second cell behind it? A 30-second check of the NWS radar or the lobby TV answers this. You are not giving an all-clear during an active warning.

You communicate clearly and calmly. PA or direct verbal:

"The immediate storm has passed. Our team has completed an initial walkthrough. The building is clear for normal movement. We ask that you use caution in common areas and contact building management if you observe any damage or water intrusion in your suite. Thank you for your cooperation."

That is the all-clear. Not "we think we're okay." Not "looks like it passed." A clear, grounded statement that the building has been assessed and occupants may move.

Phase 5 - Damage Assessment

Now you find out what the storm left behind.

This is your systematic walk, documented with photos, starting from the top and working down.

The roof. This is your first stop and your highest-risk area. After a significant hail event or high-wind storm, your roof membrane, flashing, HVAC equipment curbs, and drainage can all take damage that isn't visible from the ground. Walk it - carefully, and only if it is structurally safe to access. Photo everything. If you find punctures, displaced membrane, or compromised equipment, you are calling your roofing contractor before you call anyone else.

On this particular day, you find two things:

The main parking lot entrance has a large oak tree across the driveway - both lanes blocked, no vehicle damage, no injuries. The storm is clear but the tree hasn't been assessed.

On the top floor, one tenant suite has visible water intrusion at the exterior wall - ceiling tiles are saturated, water is pooling on the floor near the window line. Active drip.

The tree. Secure the area first. Cones, caution tape, a vehicle across the approach if available. No one walks near that root system until your landscaping vendor has assessed it. End-of-day tenant departure is in roughly 90 minutes. You have a secondary exit and you need to activate it now.

Landscaping vendor gets a call immediately: "We have a large tree down blocking our main entrance and exit. We need emergency removal assessment as soon as possible - we have tenant departure in 90 minutes."

Tenant communication goes out before 4:45pm. Not long. Specific. Calm:

"During this afternoon's storm, a tree came down and is currently blocking the main parking lot entrance. No injuries occurred. Please use the east exit on [street name] for departure this evening - signage and staff are in place. We will update you once the main entrance is cleared."

The water intrusion. This one moves fast. Saturated ceiling tiles will fail. Wet flooring is a slip hazard. Any electrical near the water is a serious concern. Your engineer is in that suite within minutes of your assessment.

Stop the water at the source if possible - check for any roof drain or exterior drain that may be blocked causing overflow. Document the water line, the point of entry, and the extent of spread with photos. If tenant contents are at risk, that conversation happens now, not after the water has been standing for four hours. Pull ceiling tiles if needed to stop them from failing onto tenant property.

Your restoration vendor gets a call. Not tomorrow morning. Now.

Ownership Notification

One message. Covers the full arc.

"Tornado warning was issued at 2:47pm. Building implemented shelter-in-place at 2:49pm. All 340 occupants accounted for, no injuries. All-clear given at 3:18pm following initial engineer walkthrough.

Post-storm damage: (1) Large oak tree down at main entrance - landscaping vendor called, secondary exit activated, tenant communication sent at 4:38pm. (2) Water intrusion identified on top floor, Suite 620 - restoration vendor called, area secured, engineer on-site. Photos attached.

Insurance notification is next step pending vendor assessments. Will update with repair timelines."

That message is complete. It demonstrates every phase was handled. No surprises for ownership. No gaps.

What This Drill Reveals About Your Building

Does your team know the designated shelter locations and have they physically walked them in the last 90 days to confirm they're actually clear?
Do you have a way to reach every occupant in the building without relying on them checking email?
Does your landscaping vendor have a verified after-hours emergency contact and have you ever called it?
Does your chief engineer have a post-storm walkthrough protocol?
When water intrusion is confirmed, does your team know the first steps?
Does your property have a secondary exit and do your tenants know it exists?

Run This Tabletop With Your Team

Setup (10 min): Print your site plan. Mark shelter locations, the main entrance, secondary exits, and the top floor. Assign roles - PM, chief engineer, security, tenant communications.

Run the scenario (30 min): Walk the full arc. Watch → warning → shelter → all-clear → damage assessment. At each phase, ask: who communicates, what do they say, and how long does it take?

Inject complications mid-drill: Engineer doesn't answer his radio during sheltering. One tenant refuses to leave their office during the warning. The secondary exit gate has a lock and nobody has the key.

Debrief (10 min): Where did the team hesitate? What resources were missing? What didn't exist that needs to?

If you found this newsletter interesting, consider checking out these past editions:

Matt Faupel