You should always have a well documented set of emergency procedures. In this video, you’ll learn about building layouts, fail open and fail closed doorways, and emergency alert systems.
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Every organization should have a well-documented set of emergency procedures. This is to protect the employees of the organization, the data within the company, your customers, third parties, or anyone else who’s associated with the company. These emergencies might be natural disasters like fires or floods or tornadoes, or there might be something man-made like a chemical spill or toxic gas release. It could also be something relating to people like a civil disturbance.
All of these situations need to have some type of documentation to know what to do in case any one of these things happen. The problem, of course, is that when the emergency actually occurs, it’s difficult to know how to react. But if you have a well-documented, step-by-step process, you’ll know exactly what to do in any circumstance.
Every organization needs to have an evacuation policy and a set of procedures so that you know how to get out of the building, you know where to go once you get out of the building, and that everyone is meeting at a certain point. This is not only useful for your employees, but also for guests who may be in the building for the very first time. It’s useful to post these evacuation plans and fire escape plans as maps on the wall so that you know exactly where you are in the building and you know the exact path you should take to be able to exit the building as quickly as possible.
Everyone should be very aware of where all of your evacuation exits are and where all of your safety devices may be located. All of these should be well marked, and it should be very obvious where they happen to be located. When an emergency occurs, you need to be sure that everyone is able to get out of the building as quickly as possible, so there may be times were doors may automatically open and times when doors may automatically close in the case of an emergency.
A time when doors may fail open is when someone may pull a fire alarm and you need to get everyone out of the building as quickly as possible. In those case, any security doors that are normally locked will automatically be unlocked. If you have mantraps in place, all of those will be disabled and everyone is able to exit the building as quickly as possible.
If someone does pull a fire alarm, there may be doors inside of your building that are designed to close automatically. These don’t lock, but they do compartmentalize different parts of the building to prevent any oxygen from feeding an existing fire.
You should also look for and listen to emergency alert systems. There’s obviously national warning systems that provide information about emergencies in your area. And they may be based on local warnings, things that are specific to your particular geographical area. Some organizations have their own alert systems, especially large college campuses, so that they can communicate very quickly what may be happening to a large number of people to be able to keep everyone safe.