Emergency Preparedness: Avoiding Common Planning Mistakes

Key Takeaways:

• Effective emergency preparedness starts with comprehensive planning that brings together facility leaders, operations staff, emergency responders and building occupants to ensure all stakeholders understand their roles before a crisis occurs.
• Emergency plans are only as strong as the training that supports them, making hands-on exercises, drills and practical demonstrations essential for preparing staff to respond confidently during real emergencies.
• Facility managers play a critical leadership role during emergencies, and avoiding common planning and training mistakes can significantly improve occupant safety, operational resilience and overall emergency response effectiveness.

Emergency preparedness is not a sexy topic in institutional and commercial facilities, and most occupants and visitors to facilities pay little or no attention to it — until a crisis strikes. Then the issue quickly turns into everyone’s singular focus. 

This focus turns facilities managers and their staff into leaders and point people — experts with the answers to the only question that matters: What do we do now? 

Given this central role in an emergency, it is critical that maintenance and engineering managers devote time and energy to preparing for emergencies and understand the most common mistakes that can undermine their best efforts. 

Laying the groundwork 

Emergency preparedness plans are only as successful in achieving the goals of the organization as the planning that goes into them. Success requires that managers involved in the process address several early-stage processes, says Leonard Deonarine, senior director of emergency preparedness and security risk consulting at Jensen Hughes, an engineering and consulting firm specializing in safety, security and risk management 

Build a team. Creating an effective team is the first step in developing, implementing and updating the plan, and given the number of interested parties in any type of facility, this process requires broad participation. 

“The team you assemble to develop and implement the plan should include those in authority, those with responsibility, those who will take action and those being protected,” Deonarine says: 

• Authority refers to the ownership of the building, he says, “the ones who will be sued if the emergency outcome is unfavorable.” 
• Responsibility refers to “individuals who are employed by the facility to oversee the care and operation of the building. They are the ones meeting with the building inspectors and the fire department,” he says. 
• Action describes “individuals who work for the authority or the responsible party that are designated to sound the alarm, assist with the evacuation, evaluate the problem, fix the problem or provide information to the responsible party,” he says. 
• Occupants and visitors also have a critical role in emergency preparedness. “The emergency plan team should include representatives of those that will be served by the emergency plan,” he says. “Their commitment to follow the rules, learn the plan and support the ones taking action will be very important.” 

Develop and perform training for emergencies. Without follow-through, an emergency preparedness plan is unlikely to offer the desired protection to the facility and its operations and occupants. 

“Training should begin with the explanation of the basics,” Deonarine says. “Don’t assume everyone understands what is being done and why. Move from theory to practical application. 

“Go to the fire alarm panel. Walk to the sprinkler isolation valve. Review the switches that would stop the intake of outside air if a fire was nearby and smoke was being pulled into the building. Demonstrate the use of a fire extinguisher. Practice checking a door for heat prior to opening it. Conduct drills.”

Dan Hounsell is senior editor for the facilities market. He has more than 30 years of experience writing about facilities maintenance, engineering and management. 

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