The lives of every employee, visitor, and contractor in your facility may depend on your emergency response plan. This highlights the importance of dedicating the time and effort to create a comprehensive emergency response plan. An emergency response plan utilizes information collected during a risk assessment, allowing an organization to identify potential emergency scenarios and prepare a response.
For most businesses, a similar plan called an emergency action plan (EAP) is already a requirement. The EAP includes steps that employees would take to successfully evacuate or shelter-in-place in the event of a “typical” emergency. By taking your EAP a step further, you can easily develop an effective emergency response plan by considering the following:
- The goals and objectives as they relate to your organization
- The specific regulations as they pertain to your facility (e.g., OSHA, fire code, etc.)
- The hazards and threat-specific emergency procedures that have been identified in your risk assessment
- The response time of local public emergency services (fire, police, and emergency medical services), their familiarity with your facility and the hazards present, as well as their capability to stabilize those hazards
- The development of protective actions for life safety (evacuation, shelter, shelter-in-place, lockdown)
- The training of personnel so they can fulfill their roles and responsibilities
- The facilitation of exercises to practice your plan
With your plan, be sure to include a facility layout that identifies evacuation routes, assembly areas, and shelter locations. Also include the names and locations of any employees that are part of an Emergency Response Team, and keep this information updated. Don’t forget to incldue information on assisting individuals with known disabilities.
Assuming you may not have electronic access, be sure to include the name, emergency telephone and business telephone of any emergency services you might need to contact. Also include information on any warning or notification systems, including location of control panels or access points. Documenting pertinent information about the fire protection system, including type of system, location, or hazard protected and their access points would be beneficial.
Be sure to distribute the emergency response plan to members of the emergency response team and to leadership. Don’t forget to review the plan regularly and update accordingly.
