MEMA’s fleets have been working hard to meet the challenges of COVID-19. Members have been sharing information so that fleets can develop programs to protect their employees and their citizens.
Here are strategies shared by MEMA fleets.
Disinfecting Municipal Equipment
Jeffrey Tews, CPFP
Fleet Services Manager
City of Milwaukee, Operations-Fleet Services Section
Has anyone developed plans or policies to answer concerns about the spread of viruses in pieces of municipal equipment which are not part of a transit system? We have been asked to consider whether or not we should be wiping down the dashboards and steering wheels of cars and all types of trucks used by assigned staff on a daily basis.
How are you handling these issues?
John A Manring
County of San Diego
Department of General Services
Chief Departmental Operations Fleet
Below is the email I sent to staff earlier this week on this subject, we have not yet set any additional policies or procedures in place until we have another meeting but this should give you some idea on the direction we are headed.
Team, attached you will find excerpts from the County of San Diego’s COOP. The information came from the Pandemic Workbook section which details how we (Fleet) would continue operations in the event of a pandemic outbreak. With the corona virus taking place around the world we need to be prepared for an event in our area. We all hope that this will not be the case however we still need to be prepared.
Please review all documents in the attachment and print so that you may have a copy of it handy just in case. Pay special attention to the Fleet related sections.
I will also be conducting a meeting with all Fleet supervisors to discuss this info in the coming week/weeks. If you have any questions and or possible suggestions please bring them forth when we all get together.
Until then , stay safe, wash your hands frequently and know that the County of San Diego has the best emergency preparedness staff in the entire country,
John Manring
Sanitizing Pool Equipment
John A Manring
County of San Diego
Department of General Services
Chief Departmental Operations Fleet
Good morning all, the County of San Diego has taken the recent outbreaks of COVID-19 seriously as I am sure the rest of you have and we are implementing some precautionary measures as well as revisiting our Pandemic section in our COOP. I was wondering what all of you are doing in regards to sanitizing pool vehicles after use? We are considering having the Technicians wipe down the interior surfaces of the vehicles including the steering wheel, knobs and door handles with Lysol disinfecting wipes at a minimum. Of course we are already doing the standard items of making sure employees wash their hands properly and frequently, wearing latex technician gloves and social distancing as much as possible.
My question is what are all of you doing as preventive measures?
Eric Winterset
Superintendent of Maintenance
Financial Management | Fleet Services Bureau
City of Long Beach
Morning John,
We implemented the same wipe down process but, we are requiring the mechanics do this to all vehicles before working on them. We also reached out to all of our vendors to get a feel on there supply chain levels. Based on what there feedback was, we had our stockroom over stock parts and supplies now before it becomes a problem.
Gary Lentsch CAFM
Eugene Water and Electric Board
Fleet Services
We’re doing pretty much the same (wipe down the interior surfaces of the vehicles including the steering wheel, knobs and door handles with Lysol disinfecting wipes), however where doing it at the end of the day because the pool vehicles are parked at a various locations. The risk with this is, if the first user(s) happens to be sick, the other users throughout the day can become exposed.
Leaving the Clorox wipes (travel packs) in the vehicle usually last for the first one or two users and they tend to disappear by the end of the day (you’ll go through a lot of wipes as there in high demand, and finding replacement ones is next to impossible).
What’s working for us – encouraging employees to use their personal vehicles during the pandemic period (their probably safer that way anyway), and temporary reducing the # of pool vehicles.
Gary Burr
City of Tulsa
What measures are you taking for your shop? What about handles for floor jacks and the like? We have briefed the technicians and provided materials for their protection. I am curious as everyone else and their shops.
John A Manring
County of San Diego
Department of General Services
Chief Departmental Operations Fleet
We started with the requirement of all shop staff wearing their latex gloves and not sharing tools and followed up with continuous wiping down. We will continue to adjust as this develops.
Cleaning Vehicles Before and After Servicing or When Changing Drivers
Eric Winterset
Superintendent of Maintenance
Financial Management | Fleet Services Bureau
City of Long Beach
Wanted to share some info I received from Ford. Attached is a procedure for disinfecting deemed “hot spots” for Ford vehicles. It can be a guide for your staff to use for all vehicles. We implemented a similar procedure but, this had area’s that I don’t think we were identifying. We just updated our in-house procedure to reflect this guidance. I thought I would share with the group.
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Open in new tab David Worthington
Manager, Fleet & Construction Support
East Bay Municipal Utility District
Good morning and thank you for sharing. I really like the picture format of the document.
Attached is a spreadsheet that we created for Motor Pool vehicles initially because they tend to have the most different users on a daily basis compared to our other vehicles and equipment. Our Team worked together to ensure we were not missing any of the most common touch points in a vehicle. We are also tracking when the vehicle was cleaned and the odometer reading to make sure we don’t miss cleaning a vehicle after each use. I hope it is of benefit for others to use or compare to their own checklists.
John A Manring
County of San Diego
Department of General Services
Chief Departmental Operations Fleet
I thought I would share this information on options to the Clorox wipes as those become harder to get and are very costly.
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COVID-19 Guidelines for Employees Interacting with Clients in the Field
John A Manring
County of San Diego
Department of General Services
Chief Departmental Operations Fleet
Here is how the County of San Diego is dealing with public interactions during necessary business.
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Transform Disinfectant
Dan Berlenbach
Fleet Services Manager
Financial Management Department
City of Long Beach
Greetings, hope you and yours are all healthy and that your cities are holding their own in this crisis. I came across the attached vendor and information and was convinced that this product would be ideal for disinfecting vehicles. I have not used it, so I recommend you do your research to ensure it meets your needs. But I will say that we are buying right now for our operations. They have a very good video that we’ve posted at: https://vimeo.com/403825474
Dan,
Thanks for responding, We are currently in the process of packaging the raw materials for filling back orders next week we have been told Supply should be good for the foreseeable future as we has plenty of raw material available right now. packaging has been an issue but I’ve been told that we have secured a good supply to be able to service all orders going forward. Application is pretty straight forward its applied with an HVLP spray gun we have procured a few hundred units of those as well.
The product comes in a 2.5 gallon jug (you have to activate it with water) and is enough to treat 150 to 175 normal size cars or 3000 sq. ft. of space .
I have included an brief application video as well as the TDS Sheets and SDS information
If you would like to set something up for webinar for Q&A I can do that.
Give me a call to discuss.
Best wishes
Joe Sybrant
Regional Sales Manager
California / Nevada
2101 Wilkinson Blvd.
Charlotte NC 28208
jsybrant@metrotechauto.com
916.223.0988 Cell
704.525.5156 Fax
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Craig Crowder
Fleet & Interim Facilities Manager
City of Beverly Hills
We are currently mixing our own disinfecting chlorine solution, as per the CDC guidelines, in our water treatment plant.
Below are the CDC’s studies that they have performed. Regarding “Guidelines for Disinfection and Sterilization in Healthcare Facilities,” the chlorine topic recommends concentrations only between 200ppm to 1000ppm.
https://www.cdc.gov/infectioncontrol/guidelines/disinfection/disinfection-methods/chemical.html
Dan Berlenbach
Fleet Services Manager
Financial Management Department
City of Long Beach
Thanks Craig, you are fortunate to have a source there. Note that this is a non-chlorine based system that is said to be safe for all parts of a car’s interior.
Craig Crowder
Fleet & Interim Facilities Manager
City of Beverly Hills
We are thinking our solution will be safe as well but only time will tell.
FEMA Training Opportunity: COVID-19-Guidance Purchasing Under Exigent and Emergency Circumstances
David Renschler, CPFP
Fleet Division Manager
City of Fairfield
Good morning MEMA members,
For those of you interested please see the below information about free FEMA trainings.
Have a great day and stay healthy.
PDAT Resources when Procuring with Federal Grant Funds
Includes webinars under TAKE A TRAINING NOW
https://www.fema.gov/procurement-disaster-assistance-team
COVID-19 Guidance: Procurements Under Grants During Periods of Exigent or Emergency Circumstances
https://www.fema.gov/media-library/assets/documents/186350
Transporting COVID-positive Patients
Ron Lindsey, CAFS
Director
Fleet Management
San Bernardino County
We are being tasked with finding ways to transport folks who are presumptive positive to shelters and test sites.
We would use caged cars but of course those are not air-tight. We realize that airtight is not really an option, so just trying to minimize exposure to driver. We are planning on sealing off mesh area of cages with visqueen or lexan. For the seats, some have plastic covers on them but many are standard cloth….anybody have any ideas on disposable or temporary seat covers?
Interested in what everyone is doing…..
Dan Berlenbach
Fleet Services Manager
Financial Management Department
City of Long Beach
I’m sure you’ve thought of trash bags (assuming they’re not bench seats). But how about a different approach, disinfect the vehicle each time by spraying throughout. The company’s product I sent around on Friday might be a good application? It does seats and all materials…
Stephan Lobstein
Fleet Manager
Imperial County Fleet Services
In the past when transporting positive TB patience the PPE guidelines were N95 masks and disposable gloves. If gowns are available I would recommend wearing them but, the COVID-19 incident is making it difficult acquiring them. After transporting the patient the vehicle will need to be disinfected.
Forrest Heiderick
Public Works Fleet Supervisor
Alameda Public Works Fleet Services
Do you have access to a good upholstery shop? What about having Some temporary seat covers made up using heavy duty vinyl or something like it. That could be clean and disinfected after transport.
We do something like this in our PD and ambulance fleet.
Tom Fung
Would plastic sheeting (ie: paint drip cloth from Home Depot, Lowe, Ace, etc) be a viable option? It should be available, reasonably priced and single use.
Disinfectant System and Types of COVID
David Renschler, CPFP
Fleet Division Manager
City of Fairfield
Good morning MEMA members,
We were looking into MetroTech chemicals for disinfecting our vehicles and I sent their info sheets to our Fire Department to see if they were good with it to disinfect their vehicles. Please see the response below from them as there is some good information on how many types of COVID there are and how they can evolve.
Have a great day and stay healthy,
Robb Herrick
Battalion Chief
Fairfield Fire Department
Good morning David,
I wish I could give you a better answer than this, which is I don’t know.
Looking at two CDC websites, I would have some questions before buying.
There are currently four main sub groups of the Human Corona Virus:
Human Coronavirus Types
Coronaviruses are named for the crown-like spikes on their surface. There are four main sub-groupings of coronaviruses, known as alpha, beta, gamma, and delta.
Human coronaviruses were first identified in the mid-1960s. The seven coronaviruses that can infect people are:
Common human coronaviruses
1. 229E (alpha coronavirus)
2. NL63 (alpha coronavirus)
3. OC43 (beta coronavirus)
4. HKU1 (beta coronavirus)
Other human coronaviruses
5. MERS-CoV (the beta coronavirus that causes Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, or MERS)
6. SARS-CoV (the beta coronavirus that causes severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS)
7. SARS-CoV-2 (the novel coronavirus that causes coronavirus disease 2019, or COVID-19)
People around the world commonly get infected with human coronaviruses 229E, NL63, OC43, and HKU1.
Sometimes coronaviruses that infect animals can evolve and make people sick and become a new human coronavirus. Three recent examples of this are 2019-nCoV, SARS-CoV, and MERS-CoV.
This product says it will kill the Alpha Coronavirus 229E or ATCC VR-740
Per CDC, COVID 19 a beta coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2)
This leads me to question if this product has even been tested on COVID 19? I would be very skeptical.
Here are the links to CDC and ATCC where I found this information:
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/types.html
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/summary.html#severity