Action Steps to Create a Plan for Handling Emergencies
Preplanning is necessary to successfully minimize any bad effects of an emergency or disaster on a food service or hospitality business & its operations. Emergencies & disasters can take a myriad of forms, like physical perils, workplace accidents or acts of sabotage or terrorism that are deliberate. This article gives basic steps in developing plans to help you business survive in the event of an emergency.
- Pick a knowledgeable and trustworthy person to devise a plan.
- Recognize the things needing controls. Terrorism, bomb threats, natural disasters like hurricanes, tornados, flooding, fires, workplace violence, chemical spills are just a few that come to mind.
- Decide if One Plan or Multiple Plans for each exposure need be developed.
- Build a list of organization names, address, phone numbers, email address, points of contact names of emergency response resources. Examples of emergency resources include: police, fire, alarm service, hospitals, insurance broker, poison center, public health department, telephone company, gas, electric, water utilities, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and insurance carriers.
- Draft the plan(s), covering prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery issues.
- Establish target dates for completing each section of the plan and one date for the entire plan.
- Build plans as either Action guides, Response Plans or Emergency Management Plans.
v Action Guides are usually in a checklist format listing the steps that need to be accomplished when an event happens. It generally outlines that company personal and outside agencies to be called, what information is to be collected and what actions are to be taken. These guides are generally part of a more comprehensive emergency management plan.
v Response Plans are also called contingency plans and describe in most detail the steps listed in the Action Guides. Response Plans will generally provide more information on the actions that must be implemented to limit damage from an emergency and do not deal with pre-emergency or recovery planning.
v Emergency Management Plans are comprehensive documents that include the Action Guides and Response Plans. It describes the methods used to prevent emergencies, actions when the event happens, activities needed to keep the organization operational, and steps to bring company back to full operation.
- After the plan is drafted take inventory of the equipment required, employee knowledge and skill levels, and develop a shortfall list. This is a list of equipment that has to be purchased or, if purchase is not an option, how plan can be modified. Also, develop all training requirements needed for execution of the plan.
- Consider these special issues while devising the plan. Does the business operate outside of normal hours and thus need additional, trained personal? Are there subcontractors working in the facility and are they accounted for in the plan? Are normal jobs and processes constant or is there a great deal of flux? Have backup personal been identified and trained for each critical emergency action? Does the facility rely only on commercially supplied electrical power?
- Select / Appoint individuals responsible to implement the plan and conduct training.
- Finally, setup a schedule to exercise the plan and audit the success of each step or action. The more frequently the plan is exercised, the better prepared personal will be, the more easily potential problems will be identified, and corrections made before any real emergency occurs.
For More Information Contact: Rodney Nars
630-965-9585
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