With an evacuation plan, you ensure that an evacuation takes place in a structured manner; Without panic and without casualties.
However, an evacuation plan does not always guarantee that things will go well.
After all, it is a more or less static plan with fixed escape routes, while incidents do not always go according to plan…
Of course, your organization has defined all possible risks on paper and worked out the various scenarios, including the best escape routes for those scenarios. The emergency response organization knows exactly what to do in these situations and evacuation drills are regularly carried out. For many organizations, this is also sufficient. But where there are greater risks, where chemical substances are used, where there are immense industrial sites or a risk of a terrorist or activist attack, a different approach is often necessary. If there is a toxic gas cloud hanging over your large industrial organization, it is questionable whether it should be evacuated at all. Staying indoors may be safer under these circumstances. If you are dealing with a shooter on your outdoor property, your people should certainly not go outside. They could just end up right in the field of fire of this shooter… Does a visitor to your cinema become unwell in one of the theatres? In that case, it is sufficient to only evacuate this room and to burden the rest of the visitors as little as possible with (the consequences of) the incident. From these examples, it immediately becomes clear that responding to an incident is tailor-made; Both for the follow-up and for the choice to evacuate and how. In other words, dynamic evacuation. But how do you do that?
Gather reliable information
In order to make the right decisions, reliable information about the nature, location and severity of the incident is essential. The more accurate the information about the incident is, the more likely it is that your emergency response officers will make the right decisions. There are several ways to collect this information. Investigation by emergency response officers In buildings that are not too large, your own emergency response staff can investigate themselves after an incident report. They can then see exactly what is going on and where; They are situationally aware. Based on this information, they can now make the right decisions and set out corresponding actions. Stakeholders at incident location In addition, there are Incident Response Management systems, such as NowForce, that you can use to collect information. In an app, the reporter of the incident, the successors/emergency responders, the security personnel and the operators in a control room or crisis center can share all relevant information with each other. Based on the information collected in this way, possibly in combination with live images from security cameras, your emergency response or crisis organization can make the right decisions. PSIM – Physical Security Information Management software Furthermore, you can use the available information from the security and business systems. Especially if you have PSIM software (Physical Security Information Management), this will provide very reliable information. A PSIM collects, filters and interprets data from all these systems and databases and presents you with only the information (at that time) and relevant to the incident. This gives you a good idea of the situation on site and prevents an overkill of information.
From information to action
Once you have sufficient (relevant and reliable) information about the incident (severity, location, development), you can decide whether a full or partial evacuation is necessary or whether other measures need to be taken. This is apart from the necessary follow-up by emergency services. Depending on the incidents you can expect, you set up your alarm organization and purchase systems with which you can instruct the people in your organization in the event of an incident. Depending on the system chosen, your people can be alerted with an evacuation signal or via a voice instruction. See the different options below. Evacuation signal for standard evacuation If you want to initiate a standard evacuation (and therefore want all people out of the building via the known escape routes), it is obvious to do this with the standard evacuation signal from the evacuation alarm system. Evacuation signal supplemented with voice instructions If you expect additional, flexible instructions to be required, for example because a certain escape route is not available, a Type A evacuation system (spoken word) with a command microphone is required. You can then use the microphone to provide the scenario-specific information to the people in the building. Variable evacuation signal If you have already worked out different evacuation scenarios in advance for different types of incidents, you can also choose to have a different signal or spoken instruction for each evacuation scenario. This only works if the emergency response organization is extremely well trained and evacuations are routinely practiced. After all, the employees now need to know which signal stands for which type of evacuation. In general, we only see this in large industrial organizations that have a highly professional alarm organization. Evacuation alarm system as a public address system or warning signal As we described earlier, in some situations there is no need to evacuate and people should stay inside and perhaps close the windows. For example, if there is a toxic gas cloud. In that case, this instruction should also be shared with the people in the organization. It doesn’t make sense to use an evacuation signal for this. That would be counterproductive. However, you can now use the evacuation alarm system as a public address system and you can give spoken (customized) instructions to the staff via the command microphone.
Automatic Actions
Depending on the incident, not only do people have to be alerted, but the doors in the escape route must also open (simultaneously). Or close if there is a shooter who is still outside the building. The control of doors, extinguishing systems, emergency services and initiating a possible evacuation can be (partially) automated, depending on the systems you work with. For example, via the aforementioned Incident Response Management system NowForce, all available information can be disseminated to reporters, emergency responders and the personnel present. (Flight) instructions can also be given via the app. And with the push of a button, people can indicate that they are safe, allowing emergency responders to fully focus on the people who are not yet safe at that moment. If you work with a PSIM solution, many more actions can be automated. You then have the option to include standard procedures and instructions in the software in the form of dynamic step-by-step plans. The step-by-step plans can adapt to the time, the location of the incident or the way in which the situation develops. Your emergency response staff or control room operators will see the step-by-step plans on their dashboard and will be guided through a situation step by step. The software also constantly provides (current) relevant information that can be used to make the right decisions. As a result, there is much less chance of human (interpretation) errors and you can be sure that all necessary actions/actions are carried out and in the right order. Furthermore, all information can easily be shared with others (such as emergency services and service providers from the safety region), so that everyone has the same relevant information. By linking an Incident Response Management system to a PSIM, you can stay in control of incidents and adequately inform your people on location and, if desired, deploy them for the right response and assistance. Live camera images from people’s smartphones on location are now automatically displayed in the central environment (control room or control room, for example). Thanks to these ‘eyes on the ground’, situations can be better assessed and assistance can be deployed in a targeted manner.
Finally
You don’t just evacuate; It is a heavy tool that disrupts the organization considerably. People can panic and (production) processes come to a standstill. Only when it is really necessary will there be an evacuation and then no more people, buildings or parts of buildings than necessary. But the evacuation must be done in the right way. How? Then depends on the type of incident, the location and the severity. For large, complex organizations where multiple types of incidents are possible, scenario-based or dynamic evacuation is essential. But then you need to be able to base your decisions on reliable information about the incident. Depending on (the size of) your organisation, the emergency response organisation can collect information about the incident itself or you can leave it to intelligent systems. Applications such as NowForce and a PSIM provide a lot of useful management information in this regard. You can also record all actions, decision-making and other relevant information (such as conversations, actions and camera images) in these systems. You have the opportunity to evaluate whether the right actions have been taken after an incident and to convert the lessons learned into new or adapted procedures and instructions. This information can also be used to increase security awareness in your organization.
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