Commercial real estate disasters rarely look like the ones that dominate the evening news. Homes burn. Neighborhoods flood. Dramatic footage follows. But for institutional property owners, the real damage often unfolds quietly — inside mechanical rooms, elevator shafts, electrical systems and decision-making chains that move too slowly.
Claudine Ripert, COO of Critical Control Restoration, whose firm focuses on disaster recovery and resilience for commercial properties, spends her days in those hidden moments — before, during and immediately after crisis. Her message is simple: The difference between a manageable incident and a multimillion-dollar loss is often measured in hours.
Sometimes, it’s measured in minutes.
DISASTERS YOU DON’T SEE
When people think of property destruction, they picture natural catastrophes. Wildfires. Hurricanes. Earthquakes. Those events do affect commercial buildings, Ripert says — but they’re only
