emergency response plan Archives

On a rather soggy Friday morning, I sit at my keyboard to update you on this past weeks comings and goings in the emergency preparedness world. Three morsels for you to chew on today. The first on sports facilities, the second on tests and drill and finally we wrap with our heads in the Cloud.

If you were at home or the office, if preparations have been made, your world is relatively ready. However, what if you are at a place where thousands of others are gathered, it is enclosed and the entrances and exits are fine for an orderly exit, but not a mass one. Our first article speaks to emergency preparedness at sports facilities. This downloadable PDF covers in basic lists the responsibilities of all the facility personnel. From the Facility Manager who has to coordinate and provide leadership to the Facility Food Personnel who need to have sufficient food and water in the event of a disaster. It goes on to detail Preparing the Disaster Plan to make sure everything that can be done is done in event of a catastrophe. Good advice.

Speaking of making plans and making sure personnel are well versed in their roles, I am posting several links to emergency planning tests and drills that local councils are making in their area. What I like about these initiatives is that after the various natural disaster seasons have calmed down, area emergency managers want to ensure they are ready. The one from NPTelegraph.com speaks to how to handle an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in rural Nebraska.

The Cloud. Depending on which generation you are born into, this conjures up different meanings. Doing a quick google search brings the realization that “The Cloud” has nothing to do with nature but all to do with computing.

Sigh!

Our final article today is titled “10 Disaster Preparedness Questions to Ask Your Cloud Services Providers”. It covers a lot of computer jargon but the bottom line for Emergency Management people and their IT department, is how do we stay online and reduce or eliminate downtime during a natural disaster. Your business life depends on it.

Until next week… Keep Calm and Carry On.

A common mistake that people make when preparing for a disaster, whether at home or at work, is to get bogged down with the details. While it is great to have a plan that accounts for every detail of a particular potential disaster, you need to keep in mind that the bigger the plan is, the less familiar everyone will be with it. Also, there are so many different disasters and unforeseen circumstances within those disasters that there is no way to create a plan to deal with every detail–the key to emergency preparedness is to create a framework and a methodology to deal with any emergency.

Elements of an Effective Emergency Response Plan

The Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety recommends that an effective emergency response plan should include basic procedures for every emergency that is a real threat to your location, a list of available resources, a list of personnel (including contact information and areas of responsibility), floor plans and larger maps showing evacuation routes and technical information. These are good guidelines to keep in mind, but you should also bear in mind that communication and a recovery plan should also be part of your disaster plan.

Applying Disaster Planning Principles to Your Home

The same principles that are part of a corporate disaster plan should be in play in a personal disaster plan. What emergencies are likely to hit your home? Unless you live next to railroad tracks or a chemical plant, you probably can skip the procedures for the chemical spill, but you’ll probably want a plan for fire and tornadoes.

A list of available resources can be important in a home emergency situation, particularly if you can spell out on that list where to find those resources in case your memory fails in the heat of the moment. The list of cell phone numbers can be helpful if you have family unaccounted for when the disaster hits. Maps with evacuation routes and a meeting place, like the store down the street or the big maple tree two houses down can be very helpful, too. Your communication plan should provide multiple methods for getting information during a crisis (TV, cell phone, weather radio, etc). A list of numbers to call during recovery, like insurance agents, handymen, etc. can be very helpful to have in the disaster plan as well.

Having a general emergency response plan with most of the key elements in place can help you to deal with an emergency, even if you couldn’t foresee the specifics of the emergency. By staying calm and sticking to your plan, surviving and recovering from an emergency will be much easier for you.

Friday Roundup – Sports, Drills and the Cloud

Disaster Preparedness — What Needs to be Included