PLANNING FOR EMERGENCIES

SUMMARY

Workplace Emergency

- is an unforeseen situation that threatens your employees, customers, or the

public; disrupts or shuts down your operation or cause physical or

environment damage.

Emergencies may be natural or man-made and include the following:

Floods

Hurricanes

Tornados

Fire

Toxic gas releases

Chemical spills

Radiological accident

Explosion

Civil disturbances, and

Workplace violence resulting in bodily harmed trauma

How do you protect yourself, your employees, and your business?

The way is to prepare to respond to an emergency before it happens.

We must brainstorm the worst case scenarios. Ask yourself what you would

do if the worst happened.

Once we identified potential emergencies, consider how they would affect you

and your workers and how you would respond.

What is an emergency action plan?

It covers designated actions, employers and employees must take to ensure

employee safety from fire and other emergencies. Action plan is a good way

to protect yourself, your employees, and your business during emergency.

Putting together a comprehensive action plan that deals with all types of

issues specific to your worksite is not difficult.

What should your emergency action plan include?

It’s a good idea to look at a wide variety of potential emergencies that could

occur in your workplace.

It should be tailored to your worksite and include information about all

potential sources of emergency.

Developing an action plan means we must do a hazard assessment to

determine what, if any, physical or chemical hazards in workplace could

cause an emergency.

At a minimum your emergency action plan must include the following:

A preferred method for reporting fires and other emergencies.

An evacuation policy and procedure;

Emergency escape procedures and route assignment, such as floor plans,

workplace map, and safe or refuge areas.

Names, titles, departments, and telephone numbers of individuals both and

outside your company to contact for additional information or explanation of

duties and responsibilities under emergency plan.

Procedure for employees, who remain to perform shut down critical plant

operation, operate fire extinguisher. Or perform other essential services that

cannot be shut down for every emergency alarm before evacuating

Rescue and medical duties for any workers designated to perform them.

How do you alert employees to an emergency?

Make sure alarms are distinctive and recognized by all employee as a signal

to evacuate the work area or perform action identified in your plan.

Make available an emergency communication and contact local law

enforcement, the fire department, etc.

Stipulate the alarms must be able to be heard, seen, or otherwise perceived

by everyone in the workplace.

How do you establish evacuation routes and exits?

To the extent possible under condition, ensure that evacuation routes and

emergency exits meet the following conditions:

Clearly marked and well lit;

Wide enough to accommodate the number of evacuating

personnel;

Unobstructed and clear of debris at all times; and

Unlikely to expose evacuating personnel to additional hazards

How do you account for employees after an evacuation?

To ensure the fastest, most accurate accountability of your employees, you may

want to consider including these steps in your emergency action plan.

Designate assembly areas where employees should gather after

evacuating.

Take a head count after the evacuation

Establish a method for accounting for non-employees such as

suppliers and customers.

Establish procedures for further evacuation in case the accident

expand.

What type of training do your employees need?

General training for your employees should address the following:

Individual roles and responsibilities.

Threats, hazards, and other protective action;

Notification, warning, and communications procedures;

Means for locating family members in an emergency;

Emergency response procedure

Evacuation, shelter, and accountability procedures;

Location and use of common emergency equipment; and

Emergency shutdown procedures

How often do you need to train your employees?

Review your plan with all your employees and consider requiring annual training

in the plan. Also offer training when you do the following:

Develop your initial plan;

Hire new employees;

Introduce new equipment, materials, or processes into the

workplace that affect evacuation routes;

Change the layout or design of the facility; and

Revise or update your emergency procedures.

DISCUSSION/EXPLAINATION:

Nobody expects an emergency or disaster. Yet the simple truth is that

emergencies and disasters can strike anyone, anytime, and anywhere and the best way

for you to do is to prepare to respond to an emergency before it happens to ensure your

safety.

Let me discuss it further. Planning for emergencies are very important. Although

we all face different challenges in life everyday but being prepared and making the right

decisions could make an enormous difference, especially when it comes to

emergencies and disasters. It is undeniable that being properly prepared and ready for

any type of emergencies could save you and your family. 

Emergencies may be natural or man-made. Natural emergencies are those

emergencies that occurs naturally such as floods, hurricanes and tornados while man-

made emergencies are those emergencies that occur because of human behavior and

action. It can be an explosions, workplace violence and etc.. But how can you respond

to an emergency? When an emergency occurs, the first priority is always life safety. The

second priority is the stabilization of the incident. There are many actions that can be

taken to stabilize an accident and minimize potential damage. First aid and CPR by

trained personnel can save lives. Use of the fire extinguishers can extinguish a small

fire. Supervision of building utilities and systems can minimize damage. Having an

emergency plan is another factor in emergency preparedness. It is very important that

we have an emergency plan. The lack of an emergency plan could lead to severe

losses such as multiple casualties and damages.

Disasters that occurred in the past decade such as hurricane Yolanda made

everyone aware about what to do and how to prepare to an emergency. In the time of

emergencies. It takes more than just willing hands to save lives. Untrained individuals

may endanger themselves and those they are trying to rescue. For this reason, it is

generally wise to leave rescue work to those who are trained, equipped, and certified to

conduct rescues.