For this week’s Guest Post Friday here at Construction Law Musings, we welcome back Melissa Dewey Brumback. Melissa (@melissabrumback) is a construction attorney and partner in the firm Ragsdale Liggett, PLLC in Raleigh. Melissa has spent over a decade representing engineers and architects, advising them on contract proposals to limit risks, and defending them when litigation does arise. She is the author of the award-winning Construction Law in North Carolina a blog dedicated to the A/E community. Melissa is rated AV, the best rating of the Martindale Hubbell lawyer rating system, is a certified LEED Green Associate, and serves as President of the RL Mace Universal Design Institute. She is also signed up to take a cruise this summer with her family (!).

The recent cruise ship fiasco, in which thousands were stranded at sea for an entire week with no running water or toilet facilities, visibly brought to mind the old axiom to “Be Prepared.” As Chris likes to say, Murphy was an optimist.

What does this have to do with your construction company? Plenty. Since time is money and a downed project extremely expensive, you should plan in advance for likely emergency situations. Some things to consider:

1. Emergency Contacts: Do you only have a cell number for your key project manager? You should have at least two ways to reach all key employees and subcontractors, as well as owner representatives and the designers of record. Consider that in a large emergency, sometimes entire cell phone towers are out of commission from overuse. A land line comes in awfully handy in such a situation.