Emergency Evacuation Planning

A workplace emergency or disaster is an unforeseen situation that threatens your employees, customers or the public; disrupts or shuts down your operations, or cause physical or environmental damage. Emergencies may be natural or manmade and may include the following:

• Chemical emergency
• Civil disturbances
• Earthquake
• Fire
• Flood
• Hurricane
• Medical emergency
• Power outage
• Terrorism
• Tsunami
• Volcano euruptions
• Wildfire
• Workplace violence resulting in bodily harm and trauma

• To protect employees, customers, others from hazards at the facility
• To maintain customer service by minimizing interruptions or disruptions of business operations
• To protect facilities, physical assets and electronic information
• To prevent environmental contamination

The purpose of an EAP and emergency evacuation planning is to facilitate and organize employer and employee actions during workplace emergencies. The elements of the plan should include, but are no limited to:

• Evacuation procedures & emergency escape route assignments
• Procedures for employees who remain to operate critical operations
• Employee accountability procedure after evacuation
• Rescue and medical duties
• Means of reporting fires and other emergencies names/job titles of persons who can be contacted

Drafting an EEP is not enough to ensure the safety of your employees and businesses. When an evacuation is necessary, you will need responsible, trained individuals who can supervise and coordinate activities to ensure a safe and successful evacuation. In addition, the EAP will be useful only if its content is up-to-date and employees are sufficiently educated and trained before and actual evacuation.

In order to successfully implement the EEP, you need to have a clear chain of command (aka authority) periodic employee training, and effective plan review, coordination and update.