DRL introduces highly visible multi-function emergency response vehicle for flood areas

Citation

(1999), "DRL introduces highly visible multi-function emergency response vehicle for flood areas", Disaster Prevention and Management, Vol. 8 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/dpm.1999.07308cad.004

DRL introduces highly visible multi-function emergency response vehicle for flood areas

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DRL introduces highly visible multi-function emergency response vehicle for flood areas

Keywords Emergency services, Floods, Vehicles

A highly visible multi-function emergency response vehicle, designed and equipped to help technicians, their supervisors as well as insurance and local authority personnel deal swiftly and efficiently with major flood disasters, is the latest innovation from Disaster Restoration Limited, the leading UK specialists in fire and flood restoration.

Part of the company's ongoing effort to improve even further the service offered to its clients the contingency vehicle is already permanently on stand-by, prepared to set off at a moment's notice for any part of the country experiencing severe or widespread flooding.

The vehicle leaves its base with a full complement of the requisite emergency response equipment, including the water extraction equipment, dehumidifiers and air-movers necessary for initial damage limitation. Once on site, the equipment is unloaded and despatched to where it is most needed, whereupon the vehicle is transformed into an easily identifiable "command post" for the use of DRL's field director.

Inside the all-white vehicle, prominently embellished on each side as well as on the roof with the eye-catching red, white and blue DRL logo, is a mini-office furnished with everything needed to co-ordinate the company's response to the emergency situation, including sophisticated telecommunications equipment as well as direct computer links to insurance companies, their helplines and to DRL's own national control centre at its Basildon, Essex, headquarters.

Using the vehicle as his base, the DRL field director can collate all necessary information, issue work sheets, hold team briefing sessions for his staff of technicians, monitor work flow and control the distribution of emergency equipment to where the need is greatest.

Loss adjusters and other insurance company personnel drafted into the area at short notice from their own distant offices, who need to deliver assignments, check the status of a particular job, or even need a temporary desk for their own work, will also find the vehicle useful, hope DRL. Local authority personnel, too, will appreciate the advantage of a convenient centre where they can seek assistance with the buildings for which they are responsible.

"Experience has shown us", says Bill Lakin, DRL's technical director, "that a vehicle such as this will fill what has become a very obvious gap. During the recent regional floods in various parts of the country, we deployed more than 100 technicians on each occasion. It was in those circumstances we realised how vitally important it was for us to have a focal point where both our technicians and our insurance industry clients could be certain of finding all the information and assistance they required. Our new highly visible, easy-to-locate ERV will really fit the bill."

Disaster Restoration Limited is one of this country's leading suppliers of fire and flood restoration services. It operates 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, so that its nation-wide network of fully-trained technicians can respond immediately to any problem anywhere in the country. They are available either to undertake a complete emergency damage limitation programme or alternatively to head up teams of in-house staff to help minimise disruption and get homes, offices or other premises back into action as soon as possible.

For further information please contact DRL, Unit 4, Buckwin Square, Basildon, Essex SS13 1BJ, UK. Tel.: +44 (0) 1268 725100; Fax: +44 (0) 1268 725800; E-mail: response@drl.net; WWW: http://www.drl.net