Emergency Evacuation Plans

The Emergency Response Plan establishes a structured and systematic process of responding to events or situations resulting in emergencies that could pose a threat to the safety and welfare of people and infrastructure at the site for which the plan is developed.

The Emergency Response Planshould encompass the full range of emergencies including, but not limited to fire, toxic gas release, personnel medical/health incident, rescue, and environmental incident involving chemical and hazardous material leak/spill and building/structural fires. The emergency response plan should clearly state how to involve operational responses, internal and external communications and external affairs management as applicable for any particular emergency.

The Emergency Response Plan should address all components of the strategy required for an effective response. However, it should not attempt to provide the detailed tactical field response procedures.

The Emergency Evacuation

Each emergency response plan must have an emergency evacuation section. The Emergency Evacuation Plan forms a component part of the Emergency Response Plan. It should describe the detail evacuation plan for the site. The evacuation plan could be broken down into different sections as follows:

Discovery of Emergency

A good evacuation plan will have a section on guiding the person who discovers the emergency. This could include providing information like taking the following steps:

1. Rescue any persons that are in immediate danger.

2. Activate the emergency alarm and call the emergency number 8111 without delay.

3. If it is possible to contain the emergency without endangering your own life take action.

4. Evacuate the area and proceed to the assembly point.

5. At the assembly point report to the warden on duty and await instructions

Emergency Evacuation Procedure

The main part of the plan will be describing the evacuation procedure. The plan should distinguish whether there will be a different requirement for a real emergency and a drill. The fact of the matter is, all the occupants of the building should know and follow the guidelines. A lot of detail on exactly how the evacuation should take place must be included.

It is also important to include specific requirements for people with special needs as they are exposed to a particularly high risk during an emergency.

Alarms & PA Systems

The site should be equipped with a general evacuation alarm that is audible from every location on the site. If the alarm sound all persons on the premises must evacuate the building and assemble at the emergency assembly points.

Based on a vulnerability assessment and the type of emergencies identified during such an assessment, it may be necessary to have different sounds for different emergency types that require different actions from the employees. As and when it is identified to have different alarms for a particular site, all affected employees must be made aware of the meaning of such different alarm type.

Some sites are also equipped with a Public Address (PA) system that has the capability to be activated in different zones in the site. The system should not be used it as the primary alarm to initiate an evacuation. The PA system should only be used as an additional communication medium to direct people away from the emergency and provide updates about the development of the emergency.

CCTV

Where the vulnerability assessment indicate the need for a CCTV system or where it has been installed for other reasons it should be utilized to assist in the smooth evacuation of the site. The CCTV system could be utilized to locate, confirm or identify the detail of the emergency. The CCTV system could also be utilized to direct rescue operations. The Emergency director should be the person who must be in overall control of the use and operation of the CCTV system during an emergency evacuation.

Emergency Evacuation Routes

The emergency evacuation plan should include a requirement about evacuation routes. It should state that exits should remain unlocked and unobstructed. A description on the opening of emergency doors should be included. It should state whether the doors will automatically open or whether it should be opened from the inside. The standard is to be able to open emergency doors by pushing the horizontal bar while it is not possible to open them from outside.

The plans that indicate evacuation routes for the building should be posted at all strategic locations on the site to inform the occupants and the visitors of the routes to follow during and emergency evacuation. Frequent drills should be conducted to test and practice the plan.

Assembly points

Each area should have a unique emergency route to reach the assembly points. These routes should lead to emergency assembly points. The points should be marked with a standard emergency assembly point sign. The general rule is that the area should be away from any potential emergency and should have an area that is large enough to accommodate the number of people that will assemble in the area.

Responsibilities

The plan should clearly describe the roles and responsibilities of each person that needs to do something during an emergency. This includes at least the emergency commander, the emergency chief, the management team, the different types of emergency warden and alternate emergency wardens, medical staff and first aid wardens as well as employees, contractors, and visitors.

The evacuation plan could also include a responsibility for the shutdown of critical operations, list of contact person that needs to be contacted in the event of an emergency as well as a number of templates that could be used to make the evacuation easier.

Conclusion

The key to developing a successful evacuation plan is to base it on the outcome of a realistic vulnerability assessment. Once the plan is developed it is important train everybody on their roles and responsibilities. It will also be necessary to provide orientation to all occupants of the site with before the plan is operationally tested. This is normally done in steps of increasing involvement of the people on the site that can range from a tabletop exercise to a full scale evacuation.

© Carl Marx