The first priority of any emergency plan for a workplace is saving lives: getting people to safety as quickly as possible. Fire drills have taught us that when the fire alarm sounds, everyone should quickly walk to the nearest exit to evacuate the building.

Evacuation, however, is not the only protective action for which you need to plan. What would you do if there were an approaching tornado or a chemical plume drifting toward your building? Or civil unrest in the streets? “Shelter-in-place” plans also should be an important part of your emergency procedures.

GET TIME ON YOUR SIDE

Early detection of a hazard requiring protective actions is critical. The earlier you become aware of fires, severe weather or a spill of hazardous chemicals, the more time you will have to move people to safety.

Procure an Emergency Alert System radio that can be programmed to receive warnings of dangerous weather, hazardous-materials emergencies and other life-threatening situations.

Place the receiver in a constantly attended location and assign personnel, such as security, to monitor broadcasts and Internet weather services when severe-weather potential exists.

The emergency plan should identify who has the authority to order protective actions when warnings are issued. When an alert is broadcast, there can be no delay in warning people.

TAKE A SIP

A shelter-in-place (SIP) plan is an action to protect life safety when there is an exterior airborne hazard, such as the release of deadly chemicals or bio-agents by terrorists, and there is insufficient time to evacuate occupants of a building to a safe location.

Sheltering in place requires closing any openings in a building including doors, windows and air intakes. The SIP plan should identify the locations of and procedures for closing all outside air intakes and shutting down air-handling systems.

Trained members of the building-management team should be assigned responsibility for these tasks. Be sure someone authorized to execute the shutdown command is available whenever the building is occupied.

(In some buildings, shutting down ventilation systems may be accomplished using remotely controlled building-management systems.)

It will take more time in older buildings if staff has to travel to multiple locations to shut down individual air-handling units. For these situations assign extra staff to be sure all air-handling units can be shut down as quickly as possible.

Assign security to direct persons outside the building to take shelter inside. Then security should close all exterior doors and post a sign at each door indicating the building is “sheltering in place.”

Building occupants need to be relocated to the interior of the building away from exterior windows. Occupants should be directed to shelter on floors above the ground floor, since chemicals are heavier than air and tend to collect at grade level.

SIP is a temporary protective action, since no building can be completely sealed to prevent the infiltration of chemicals. As prevailing winds carry a plume of chemicals over a building, chemicals will enter.

As soon as the plume passes and emergency agencies sound the “all clear,” the building should be evacuated and the air-handling system restarted and placed in exhaust mode to purge the building of any chemicals.

BLACK CLOUDS, BLACKOUTS

Buildings located in tornado alley should be equipped with tornado shelters that have been structurally reinforced and are adequately sized to house all building occupants. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has published a guide, “Tornado Protection: Selecting Refuge Area in Buildings,” which is available online.

Provide a warning system with a distinct signal to alert building occupants to move to tornado shelters. Organize a team to direct everyone to the tornado shelters. If a tornado warning is issued or a tornado has been spotted, warn everyone to move to safe shelter immediately.

In addition to airborne hazards and storms, there may be other times when sheltering is necessary. The blackout of 2003, for example, required many office buildings in New York to shelter employees who couldn't get home due to lack of public transportation.

EXERCISE REGULARLY

Successful protective actions require everyone to take immediate action. Conduct training to ensure everyone is familiar with the sound of the system used for warning purposes. Everyone should know where to go and what to do if there is an order to shelter in place.

Use drills as an opportunity for emergency-team members to practice broadcasting instructions and to evaluate the audibility and intelligibility of the warning signal and announcements.

Prepare an evaluation form and assign sufficient evaluators to monitor drills. Keep records of all drills—especially drills required by regulations—and review the records as part of your preparedness program review process.

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