Emergency Procedures

[ichi]

Lots of ideas that you can add and flesh out as you see fit

Armed person in the building
Suspicious package/substance
Natural disaster procedure
Bomb threat
Discovery of break-in/burglary
Medical emergency


Some things to include in any plan

notification plan
evacuation plan
meeting place/safe area/assembly area
roles and responsibilities
who's in charge of doing what - chain of command is critical

and add a Critical Incident Stress debriefing/grief counseling and an after incident review

consider the options of shelter in place or flee, you want clear guidance on what conditions call for what response

and for things like bomb threats or burglaries the collection of good info (e.g was the bomb threat made by a man or woman, young or old, accent, what specifically was said, when/how was the threat made, etc)

be sure to address those with special needs (elderly, handicapped) and what about visitors/guests

the alarm system to be used to notify of an incident.

funny story-at work my buddy got up in front of an all-employees meeting and said, "OK, now we all know what a fire alarm sounds like, but who in here knows what sound precedes the release of toxic gases?"

of course the whole room thought about farting and quickly broke into uncontrollable laugter as the poor guy turned quite red.

Some folks have responsilities to remain behind during an evacuation to shut down critical operations, or to respond to another type of threat.

Finally, is the preparedness system up to date? Are fire extinguishers maintained? are exits marked, detectors operating? has anyone ever gotten together and discussed the level of readiness and informed the staff of procdeures? Do your mailroom folks know how to deal with suspicious packages or substances? Do they know what info is important to remember and relate to authorities in case of a bomb threat? is anyone trained to deal with medical emergencies?

Good luck, hope I've helped

ichi

[sharrukin]

In the event of a bomb threat you should also stop using radios, cell-phone's, pager's in case its electronically detonated.

Those who might take a call from an individual should know what to ask and what to remember about the caller, as a way to help the authorities. Where is the bomb, what kind of bomb, how big, etc?

This is a site that might have some info but you need to log in.

http://www.thesafetylibrary.com/sites/emergerpla.php

[Papewaio]

Do you aim to keep as much critical systems running or is it a case of shutdown and go?

Do you have disaster recovery technology in place? Tested? Offsite backups?

Redundant mission critical systems? Are they hot or cold?
Failovers? Offsite? Mulitiple vendors for routing of Data, VoIP or PSTN? Dedicated Links and control of them?

The ability to work from home? This is good for people who regularly work from home as well... which can then load test the system.

The ability to close the office and leave a message for customers to hear?

[Strike For The South]

run

[TonkaToys]

Cheers guys

Lots of useful stuff to consider, esp: predesignated meeting places, checking with authorities before evacuating (if there is only a bomb threat), notification plans, recorded messages and home-working.