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Here's Something To Think About...

Plan ahead for extended disruptions of electricity, gas, telecommunications and other utilities during and after a disaster.

Practice the Plan

Go beyond planning and frequently practice what you intend to do during a disaster. Just as your business changes day-to-day, so should your plan. Drills and exercises will help you prepare.

  1. If you rent, lease or share office space, coordinate and practice evacuation and other emergency plans with other businesses in your building or facility.
  2. Conduct regularly scheduled education and training seminars to provide co-workers with information, identify needs and develop preparedness skills.
  3. Include preparedness training in new employee orientation programs.
  4. Do tabletop exercises with members of the emergency management team. Meet in a conference room setting to discuss individual responsibilities and how each would react to emergency scenarios.
  5. Schedule walk-through drills where the emergency management team and response teams actually perform their designated emergency functions. This activity generally involves more people and is more thorough than a tabletop exercise.
  6. Practice evacuating and sheltering. Have all personnel walk the evacuation route to a designated area where procedures for accounting for all personnel are tested. Practice your "shelter-in-place" plan.
  7. Evaluate and revise processes and procedures based on lessons learned in training and exercise.
  8. Keep training records.