Family Savings Bank—Post Earth Quake Water Damage

SCS’s first construction project—Family Savings Bank in Los Angeles—is a testament to how well competence, hard work and an attention to detail can grow a short-term project into a long-standing business relationship.

Following the Northridge earthquake in 1994, developer Mike Lombardi, President of Stonebridge Holdings, asked Pat to meet a friend of his, Wayne Bradshaw, President of Family Savings Bank in Los Angeles. The bank had sustained major flood damage during the earthquake and Wayne needed someone to provide a damage estimate on his five-story main branch facility.

The insurance adjusters had already assessed that the sprinkler system in the building had been activated during the quake and ran non-stop on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day when the bank was closed, flooding all five floors of the building, and ruining all electronics, computers, files, and bank records. The insurance company had their own construction department onsite to assess the damage, but Wayne wanted an independent estimate for his own protection.

Upon his first walkthrough, Pat asked, “Who turned the sprinkler system off?” The answer was that the bank had been closed due to the holiday and no one from the bank had been present to turn them off, so they were turned off by the city.

After walking all five floors with the owners, insurance representatives, and contractors, Pat told Wayne it was not a sprinkler system problem at all. They all looked at him quizzically and said “How could you determine that so quickly?” Pat shared with them that there were no fire sprinklers in the building—on any floor!

Upon further investigation, Pat discovered that a water heater and boiler expansion tank on the building roof had tipped over and the connection sheared off in the earthquake, causing water to run non-stop from floor to floor, soaking everything in the building.

Pat’s inquisitiveness and attention to detail made a big impression on bank president Wayne Bradshaw. Wayne hired Pat that afternoon to oversee the seismic repairs and complete renovation of the main branch and to remodel several other branches over the next few years.