Article 52: Building Inspection
(Category: emergency-responses)
Article Summary
Following a disaster, an applicant may need to inspect public or private structures to determine if they are safe for entry and occupancy. FEMA separates the eligibility of these structural evaluations into two distinct categories based on public safety intent:
- Eligible Safety Inspections: Costs incurred to rapidly evaluate structures for immediate safety hazards—commonly referred to as "red-tagging"—are fully eligible under Category B.
- Ineligible Damage Appraisals: Expenses associated with inspecting a building to determine the precise engineering scope of work, calculate repair costs, or estimate economic loss are completely ineligible under Category B. These activities constitute permanent project formulation.
For eligible safety inspections, the work must be executed by force account labor, mutual aid resources, or properly procured emergency contractors.
Five Key Takeaways for CTA FEMA Compliance
- Isolate Safety Placarding under Category B: Charge the immediate costs of rapid structural safety screenings ("red-tagging") to Category B Emergency Protective Measures.
- Omit Repair Estimations from Emergency Claims: Do not combine long-term engineering damage appraisals or construction cost-estimating hours into your emergency Category B labor logs.
- Deploy ATC-20 or ATC-45 Standards for Earthquakes: Utilize recognized national engineering frameworks like ATC-20 (for earthquakes) or ATC-45 (for wind/flood) to standardize and validate your safety inspection protocols.
- Track Mutual Aid Inspection Logs Explicitly: Maintain detailed deployment manifests, resource orders, and time tracking logs for any out-of-jurisdiction inspectors brought in through mutual aid channels.
- Differentiate Emergency Inspections from Project Formulation: Ensure your field teams understand that emergency inspections stop once a facility is declared safe or restricted from public access; detailed repair mapping belongs on a project worksheet.
