Toolkit
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Tabletop exercises: Members of the emergency management group meet in a
conference room setting to discuss their responsibilities and how they would react
to emergency scenarios. These exercises are a cost-effective and efficient way to
identify areas of overlap and confusion before conducting more demanding
training activities.
Walk-through drills: During these drills, the emergency management group and
response teams actually perform their emergency response functions. This activity
generally involves many people and is more thorough than a tabletop exercise.
Functional drills: These drills test specific functions such as medical response,
emergency notifications, warning and communications procedures, and
equipment—though not necessarily at the same time. Personnel are asked to
evaluate the systems and identify problem areas.
Evacuation drills: Personnel walk the evacuation route to a designated area where
procedures for accounting for all personnel are tested. Participants are asked to
make notes of what might become a hazard during an emergency, such as
stairways cluttered with debris or smoke in the hallways. Plans are then modified
accordingly.
Full-scale exercises: Full-scale exercises simulate real-life emergency situations as
closely as possible. These exercises involve company emergency response
personnel, employees, management and community response organizations.
Train Employees
Employee training is crucial to ensuring a speedy evacuation and minimizing injuries and
damage. General training for all employees should address the following:
- Individual roles and responsibilities
- Information about threats, hazards and protective actions
- Notification, warning and communications procedures
- Means for locating family members in an emergency
- Emergency response procedures
- Evacuation, shelter and accountability procedures
- Location and use of common emergency equipment
- Emergency shutdown procedures
The scenarios developed during the vulnerability analysis can serve as the basis for training
events.
Everyone who works at or visits the facility requires some form of training. This could include
periodic employee discussion sessions to review procedures, technical training in equipment use
for emergency responders, evacuation drills and full-scale exercises.
Assign responsibility for developing a training plan. Consider the training and information needs
for employees, contractors, visitors, managers and those with an emergency response role
identified in the plan.
Determine the following for a 12-month training period:
- Who will be trained?
- Who will do the training?
- What training activities will be used?
- When and where will each session take place?
- How will each session be evaluated and documented?
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