Emergency Evacuation Drill for Offices

Most offices and large corporations may not feel the need to come up with an emergency evacuation plan as they may feel safe in the false knowledge that a disaster cannot strike their building. This is a completely wrong notion for employers to follow as a disaster can occur almost anywhere and at any moment. Thus it is important not to pre pone the organization of a good, methodical and efficient evacuation plan as this can help save many lives at the time of a potentially fatal disaster. The following step by step process will help you in formulating such a comprehensive plan for your office:

1. The first thing that you need to figure out is the possible disasters that are likely to strike the region in which your office is located. You can do this by going online and checking if your area lies in an earthquake or cyclone prone region. If there is a large water body passing through your city you may also be prone to floods. Your evacuation plan must be based on these factors. These plans can differ greatly depending on whether there is a fire risk or any other kind of risk from a natural disaster.
2. You will then need to assess all the exit points in your office building and come up with a safe route that is the shortest possible one for getting out of the building. If your office building spans over many floors, you need to come up with different routes for employees on each floor as the shortest route may be different for each one of the floors.
3. After coming up with the best route, you need to make sure that all the employees are aware of the routes that they have to follow depending on the area where they sit to work.
4. Apart from the above, you also need to determine the exact spot where everyone is supposed to assemble together after the evacuation has been carried out. A person should be designated to carry out first aid supplies from the office building that may be required in the aftermath of a disaster.
5. You should also assign someone in the office who should be assigned to immediately rush out first and not be a part of the evacuation plan so that he/she can contact the local authorities like the fire department so that help arrives in a timely manner.
6. In order to gauge the efficiency and effectiveness of your emergency evacuation plan, you should conduct regular drills. If you wish to know how successful they are, you should prepare a list of points at the end of each one so that you can make any changes if necessary.

• 1. You need to observe whether all the workers were escorted out in a calm and composed manner without any kind of chaos.

• 1. You also need to keep record of all the employees who successfully made it out in the accorded timeframe.
  2. You should observe if the route chosen by you is the best possible one for such a situation.

The above mentioned steps can help keep you safe when conducting an evacuation in a real life emergency situation.