It's Time We Do Some Mending

No, not of our relationships. Not our socks. Not fences.  It’s time we mend furniture.

Check out this video post on You Tube by the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6oHH9GTzsg&feature=player_embedded

In a warning issued late last year, the CPSC revealed that over an 8 year period, a child in this country was killed an average of once EVERY TWO WEEKS by having furniture fall over on them.

When ETC fastens down the contents of buildings, we not only fasten large objects to wall studs, but we secure items that rest on these large objects as well. In the video, it wouldn’t do much good just to fasten the cabinet and not the television. And it wouldn’t be reasonable to fasten the television and not the cabinet. The cabinet gets secured to the wall. The television gets secured to the cabinet. This is called “mending”.

Take a look at this photo:

There is a desk, two monitors on stands, a lamp, and a cabinet next to the desk. First off, during the earthquake it is critical for the worker in this area to get under the desk and hold on (notice the window). What would you fasten down in this area to keep things from flying about in an earthquake?

Mending of this workspace should involve first and foremost securing the desk to the wall. To ensure the safest environment and promote post quake business continuity, it’s best to mend the white cabinet, the two monitors, the two monitor stands and the lamp to the desk as well.

If the place you work or go to school has only one or two of these types of work spaces, it might not be too inconvenient to put things back in place after an earthquake. Of course the lamp and monitors may not be functional post shaking.   Plus, your odds of being able to get replacement lamps and monitors post earthquake will most likely be severely limited.

But what if your place of business has 50 such work areas? How about 100? 500? When do you make the decision that it is critical to secure your environment, mending things together as you fasten items to anchor points such as wall studs.

It should be an easy call to mend all televisions to what they sit on and then the whole thing to the wall. It should be, but sadly in far too many cases, it just isn’t done. Over 160 deaths to children bear that out.