Emergency Planning Actions and Decisions

The following excerpts are from IREM’s publication, Before Disaster Strikes: Developing an Emergency Procedures Manual, Third Edition (IREM Copyright 2005):

Identify federal, state, and local laws, as well as your own corporate policies, that impact emergency procedures planning. Relevant laws for a property’s location may include, but are not limited to, fire codes, building codes, environmental regulations, seismic safety codes, transportation regulations, occupational safety and health regulations, and zoning ordinances.

• Identify who will alert staff and building occupants of an emergency situation. This may take the form of a telephone “tree” or flow chart.
• Determine where staff should report in an emergency (if they are called to the site).
• Determine which entrance the responding agency or public units will use.
• Determine where external emergency response personnel will set up a “command center” on site.
• Determine where occupants should assemble after an evacuation.
• Determine what procedures should be followed if authorities’ instructions are to shelter in place.
• Determine where and to whom agencies will report.
• Determine how public and agency officials will be identified. What kind of identification will authorities require to allow key personnel to be admitted into the facility during a crisis?
• Determine the needs of disabled and non-English-speaking persons. Assign tenant or emergency team “partners” to these persons to assist them in an evacuation.
• Determine who on staff will respond to media inquiries.
• Determine who on staff will be in charge until a fire chief or other person of authority assumes command of the site as well as who will be the point of contact for responding agencies.
• Determine where relevant records will be stored (on site and off site).
• Ensure that the property owner is informed of and approves the emergency procedures plan for the property. This is especially important if the owner has not been actively involved in developing the procedures.

You should also have backups or alternatives for the chain of command, communications means and methods, gathering places, exits, and other aspects of the plan. In other words, develop “plan B” to be implemented in the event an emergency disrupts part or all of “plan A.”

Note: The foregoing list is not all-encompassing. Evaluation of a particular property may suggest other actions to be taken and/or decisions to be made.