September is here. The kids are back in school and family vacations are over. It’s the transitional month from summer to fall and it brings several pertinent topics for your safety talks, from concussion awareness to food safety. While each of these monthly awareness campaigns can make for a great digital display presentation to broadcast on the TVs in your facility, one September topic stands out as particularly well-suited for the moment: emergency preparedness.
Emergency preparedness should always have attention in your facility, and September is the perfect time to use digital presentations as a way to keep it front of mind. After all, it’s National Preparedness Month. The OSHA Emergency Action Plan requirements (as per §1910.38)—and the steps your workplace is taking to meet them—offer a perfect framework for your monthly presentation content, serving as a helpful refresher for folks that can help fight complacency in a crisis.
For your September digital display presentation, include the following minimum action plan elements as a helpful reminder of what to do and who to contact in the event of an emergency.
The procedures for reporting an emergency
It is important to designate one person (and another as backup) to call 911 in the event of an emergency. This person is also likely to wait by the roadside to direct emergency responders to the appropriate location during an evacuation. Sharing this information helps others know they don’t need to stay behind to call for help, as someone else is already doing that, so they can evacuate quickly and safely. Include the names of the people responsible for this task in your digital display presentation. Any other procedures for reporting an emergency can be included in your slides as well, including the protocol for communicating with supervisors and writing up reports.
The procedures for emergency evacuation
Situations that require evacuation include fires, extreme weather, workplace violence, explosions, toxic material releases, and radiological and biological accidents. Dedicate a section of your digital display presentation to showing your building evacuation plan with clearly marked exits and the designated meeting spot. It should also detail any exit route assignments—some people are designated to check certain rooms on their way out, others are asked to close doors. If each person performs their one assignment, everyone can evacuate quicker. Evacuation procedures are best practiced as drills, but a visual depiction of the plan displayed on the screens in your facility can work effectively as a reminder.
Not all emergencies require evacuation, and it’s important to review your shelter-in-place emergency procedures as well. Your preparedness presentation is the perfect venue for that. Shelter-in-place situations include active shooter, tornadoes, wildfire smoke, or when chemical, biological, or radiological contaminants are released into the environment. Each of these conditions will require different courses of action.
In the event of an active shooter, quietly find a place to hide where the assailant is unlikely to find you. To prevent an active shooter from entering your hiding place, lock the door or block the door with heavy furniture. It’s important to remain quiet and out of the sight of the shooter. For a tornado, the location to shelter in place is a basement, or ground-floor room or closet in the interior of the building—one without windows or external doors. In the event of a chemical threat, however, a location above ground is preferred.
It’s also important to communicate that people should not leave the building or go outside until the shelter-in-place order is lifted and they are directed by an emergency response person to do so. The only other time you can leave when a shelter-in-place order is in effect is if the area becomes unsafe. Most shelter-in-place orders are lifted within a few hours, but it’s a good idea to have an emergency kit with non-perishable food, drinking water and other supplies on hand. Use your presentation to alert viewers to where these emergency kits are located and what they contain.
The procedures to be followed by employees who remain to operate critical plant operations before they evacuate
Obviously, evacuation is the most important action but there are some things that may need to be done in a crisis to avoid creating additional hazards for emergency responders. Some employees may be assigned to operate fire extinguishers or shut down electrical systems/gas. Depending on the site, vehicles and equipment may need to be moved to allow emergency vehicles access to the site. Your digital display presentation should identify who is responsible for what tasks in order to prevent someone else from trying to assume that role during an emergency and creating additional hazards.
The procedures to account for all employees after evacuation
The size of your workplace will dictate how many people are responsible for accounting for every employee and facility guest after evacuation. Typically, in an emergency, one person is assigned to bring the visitor’s log to account for non-employees such as suppliers and customers.
Some facilities will designate areas within the evacuation assembly area where specific groups of employees should gather after evacuating. This allows their supervisor or the person responsible for taking attendance to find their group. Confusion in the assembly areas can lead to delays in rescuing people, especially if they’re trapped within the active job site. This could also cause unnecessary and dangerous search-and-rescue operations if emergency responders believe they may be inside the evacuated building.
Your digital display presentation should remind viewers of the emergency headcount procedures, as well as who is responsible for them and why they are important for the safety of everyone, from workers to visitors to emergency responders.
The procedures to be followed by employees performing rescue or medical duties
Certain employees are trained to perform rescue or medical duties within a facility and it’s crucial to define their role in the event of an emergency. By listing the trained personnel and their specializations in your presentation, you are complying with OSHA and offering a helpful reminder of who is trained in first aid/CPR in the facility or on the job sites. This can also be a good opportunity to review and reuse some of the content from any digital display presentations you may have already created concerning CPR and AED awareness.
The name or job title of every employee who may be contacted by employees who need more information about the plan or an explanation of their duties under the plan
It’s one thing to have an emergency action plan—but in order for that plan to be effective you need to know who to contact for more information. Document the names, titles, departments and telephone numbers of employees who can be contacted for additional information and keep this information in a space that everyone can access. Your digital presentation should indicate who people can go to with questions about the emergency action plan.
Don’t forget human factors
Human factors can play a role in emergency preparedness too. It can be hard to remain calm and avoid rushing during an active emergency, but that is why it is so important to be prepared. In the event of a fire, distraction and fatigue can impede reaction time when it’s the most critical. Fear in a workplace violence emergency is another human factor that could take over without the proper preparation, and it’s important to know how to react in all situations.
Complacency is also a major issue. As long periods of time pass without an emergency at your facility, it becomes increasingly difficult for workers to see the risk associated with a potential crisis. Consider severe thunderstorms, which should be included in your emergency preparedness plan. Because most people have experienced a multitude of thunderstorms in their lifetime without major incidents, it’s common for folks to ignore the real threat they pose. But thunderstorms cause hundreds of thousands of injuries and nearly 10,000 deaths every year. We need to actively remind ourselves of the dangers of severe weather in order to be prepared for the emergencies they can cause. The same goes for other types of emergencies. Your digital display presentations are a handy way to push against that complacency, helping everyone in your facility stay alert to threats they’ve naturally come to downplay.
For more information on how to develop a great digital display presentation from scratch, check out our guide to mastering creating digital safety presentations.