Planning For An Emergency – Are You Ready?

 

By George Kezerle, OHST
Director of Training & Course Development, ArkLaTex Safety Council

It doesn’t matter if you are preparing for home or business, the procedures are the same. One of the situations that are lacking in most homes and businesses is that there is a lack of preparation for an emergency and most important is that the plan is not exercised at least annually. In preparation for any emergency there is a need to address each of the anticipated emergency response scenarios. Let’s look at both home and business, first the home scenarios, then businesses.

HOME Scenarios

  1. Weather – all possible scenarios
  2. Fire – Smoke detectors, exit plans, assembly areas
  3. Medical Emergency – all possible response situations

Business Scenarios

  1. Weather – all possible scenarios, appropriate plans for each scenario.
  2. Fire – alarms, procedures, Exit plans, assembly areas
  3. Bomb Threats – procedures are important & must be exercised
  4. Medical Emergency – all possible response situations, this includes construction and work sites that are not related to a standalone business, or corporate type businesses.
  5. Terroristic Threats – all possible scenarios must be considered
  6. Equipment malfunction emergency scenario – What effect will the malfunction have on the business?

Each emergency response scenario requires two components:

  1. Everyone must be trained for each scenario that they are responsible in any given emergency scenario.
  2. Each scenario should have at least two people trained for each emergency response scenario.