An Emergency Response Team may sound like an alien concept to implement in a housing society but its many versions are commonly known to us all. A neighborhood watch or a SWAT team, or in more recent times, an ERT of medical practitioners. These are the first-hand responders in times of trouble. Let’s explore further.

What is an Emergency Response Team?

Also known as an Incident Response Team, it’s a group of people who are appointed to solve crises, and respond to emergencies (in a calm and collected manner) with practical action plans. Such a team consists of members who are qualified and prepared to handle emergencies (volunteers or designated members).

Why is an ERT needed in a housing society?

A housing society faces emergencies quite frequently. Some examples are listed below:

• COVID-19 (or other medical) cases that can escalate quickly.

• Lack of essentials during continuous lockdowns or unavailability of specific medicines and daily needs.

• Incoming (forecasted or otherwise) natural calamities like flooding issues, storms, earthquakes, etc.

• Accidental fires or structural breakdown in the building.

• Failure of society assets like composting units, electric/smart meters, fire alarm systems, etc.

• Domestic or community conflict (in some cases, physical assault).

• Intruders, robbers, and vandals are causing damage to property and disturbing the privacy of residents.

• Mishandling of hazardous materials during maintenance and repair.

Any such incidents need to be handled with caution so as to prevent any physical, monetary, psychological, and emotional distress to the spirit of community living.

How to form an Emergency Response Team (ERT) in your housing society?

Step 1: Identify the categories of emergencies within the desired Incident Response Team and appoint points of contact for each.

Points of contact for:

• Medical/Covid-19 emergencies

• Domestic/internal conflicts

• Technical failure, equipment malfunction

• Natural calamities or accidents within the premises

• Elevators safety and malfunctioning with people trapped inside.

• Any other categories as per the needs of your housing society

Step 2: Select members based on needs and qualifications
Circulate a notice to form ERT among group chats and notice boards and announce that volunteers are welcome.

Usually, the responsible members who are willing to help will step forward. Alernatively, if you already know the members who would do a good job as a reliable point of contact, you can approach them directly after discussing it within the MC meeting. Use both approaches as you’d be able to appoint a secondary point of contact through willing volunteers as well.

What will be the responsibilities of the ERT?

After you’ve appointed the primary and secondary points of contact for each category, formulate their core responsibilities and the action plan needed for their roles.

Here’s a sample.

1. ERT points of contact in society for accidental fire and natural disasters should have:

• An action plan for evacuation

• Fire safety plan

• A drill practiced in advance

• A plan for securing vehicles and other property of the society.

• Train the security guard and maintenance staff in damage control.

2. Points of contact in society for internal conflicts, robbery, vandalism should:

• Be able to intervene immediately.

• Hear out all parties involved, devise a fair judgment, and impose it.

• Apprehend the perpetrators immediately and hand them over to the local authorities.

• Set up a neighborhood patrol if needed.

3. ERT points of contact in society for Medical/ Covid-related emergencies should be responsible for:

• Arranging for first aid and CPR, temporary solutions like bandaging wounds, PPE /isolation protocols.

• Providing a list of nearby health facilities and doctors on call.

• Distributing safety measures for children, elderly family members of the patient.

• Making medicines or supplements available.

4. Points of contact in society for equipment failure should:

• Maintain a list of all associated vendors and their contact information.

• Be trained in emergency lift rescue protocols (usually, the guard and facilities manager should be able to handle such scenarios).

• Solve minor technical glitches or get someone from within the society premises to help immediately.

Above are some examples. However, each point of contact can create their own action plans and acquire skill sets to implement them based on society’s requirements. A society can set aside funds for ERT activities or go ad hoc for funds if needed. Team members can be from the MC/RWA as well as regular members.

Common rules for ERT members

• Protect people first, the property later.

• Be available at all times to respond.

• Choose ERT members with specific skill sets (e.g. medical health professionals, engineers, people with necessary life experience who may be in managerial/leadership roles in their careers or experienced business owners.)

• They should be self-trained in their ERT roles with periodic retraining to maintenance staff and guards.

• Each ERT member should make their own checklist along with an action plan to stay on top when an emergency strikes.

• Firefighting/escape and drills and basic medical emergency, first aid skills should be taught mandatorily to all ERT members.

An Emergency Response Team should be able to act swiftly, think on their feet, and consider the good of the many above selfish motives.

Freshwater is a rare commodity in the world. Out of 70% of all the world’s water, only about 2.5% is freshwater. The rest has to be treated by scientific technology. But not every household in India has access to fully treated or purified water available directly off the tap. What flows through our faucets is hard water with varying levels of chemical content.

What is hard water? How to identify it?

Hard water is water that contains salts, high mineral content, calcium, magnesium, bicarbonates, sulfates, and other impurities. It has the following indicators that you may find commonly:

• Dry scum on utensils/glassware even after washing them
• Scaling on pipes, plumbing fixtures, the surface of the toilet, and faucets
• Dry and itchy skin
• Blurry spots on appliances and objects cleaned with hard water

Such water is not fit for consumption by humans without proper treatment as the residue can cause health problems like kidney problems, cardiovascular or neural diseases. Indian domestic water supply is notoriously famous for its hardness, it corrodes pipes, water heaters and needs extra detergents/cleaners to get things cleaned.

Due to the shortage of treated water in India, many housing societies have to hire services of water tankers that provide water directly from the borewell, the quality of which is questionable. The soap doesn’t lather well, and hair becomes brittle and dry. What should the residents do to resolve this problem?

How to soften hard water

1. Industrial RO installation

One of the ways to ensure that all of the water that gets supplied remains harmless is to get a Reverse Osmosis water treatment plant which can drastically bring down the hardness of potable water. The term used to describe it scientifically is TDS (Total Dissolved Solids) which is the total amount of inorganic matter and minerals in the water. Studies suggest that the acceptable amounts of TDS in drinking water should be between 50-300 and anything above 500 is not fit for drinking. RO units have been known to reduce the number of TDS by 80% to 90% if the brand is BIS approved and reliable.

Housing societies can consider investing in one depending upon their society size and requirements. They can cost anywhere between Rs 20,000 to Rs 1.5 lakh.

2. Home remedies for hard water problem

Another safeguarding measure against hard water is to apply some tried and tested home remedies, although it may be stated that these are short-term solutions and need to be used again and again. You can boil hard water at home before drinking. When it comes to cleaning faucets, utensils, and appliances to ensure no spots remain, you could use some hot water mixed with all-natural/distilled white vinegar. Yet another hack is to use washing soda while doing your laundry. Some people also like to invest in a domestic water softener, which is used for softening bathing and cleaning water. It could cost anywhere between Rs 1500 to Rs 10,000. An individual whole-house water filtration system could cost up to Rs 20,000.

3. Water purifier

A healthy household must invest in a good water purifier for drinking water despite using any of the above measures.

Here’s what to look for when choosing a reliable water purifier

The three commonly used filtration technologies are RO, Ultraviolet filtration (UV), and Ultrafiltration. The first step to check the TDS levels of your housing society water supply in order to decide which one is the best for you. This can be done by buying a TDS meter online (Rs 150-Rs 4000).

After finding out the TDS levels, shortlist the water purifiers on the basis of the range of TDS mentioned on the specifications of the water purifier brand. If the brand doesn’t provide the type of purification technology and TDS recommendations, do not buy it, no matter how economical.

If the TDS level found in your water is above 500 ppm, you can choose an RO water purifier.

If it is below 200 ppm, you could go for a UV or a UF filter. To be doubly sure (or if the TDS levels are above 1000 ppm), you could also get a water purifier system that combines both technologies.

Keep in mind that RO systems consume a lot of electricity and pose a challenge of wasted water. It’s ideal if you explore systems that offer a water storage tank for sifted water that can be later used for cleaning purposes.

Last but not least, you could also consider a gravity-based water purifier that cleans drinking water equally well without needing electricity and is quite affordable but may not last as long as RO/UV systems and require more maintenance. As a rule of thumb, visit the brand’s website and check online reviews as well.