As prime consultant for this nationwide contract to inspect disaster damaged homes, PB’s services include:

• Recruiting and training professional housing inspectors
• Providing handheld computers for data collection
• Accomplishing all inspections within FEMA-mandated time frames
• Receiving and reviewing all daily inspection reports via modem from the inspectors
• Developing a quality control program for the inspection activities

PB conducts a quality control program using their most senior and most experienced inspectors to repeat inspections for selected and willing homeowners and renters to ensure that the inspector cadre are properly documenting the damages. From a customer service viewpoint, the inspectors also request each homeowner to complete a postcard evaluation response that is mailed directly to PB’s review staff. Once the inspections are received at the review office, each inspection is checked for consistency, logic, and detection of obvious errors in quantity measurements.

The project won the 2001 PB Project of the Year award in the studies and special projects category. Subsequently, PB has been awarded a second 5 year contract for this work.