Area-Specific Evacuation Plan FAQ
Environmental Health & Safety (EH&S) often receives questions from employees about evacuation plans. To help answer these questions, EH&S has put together the following answers for your convenience. If you have any other questions about Area-Specific Evacuation Plans that are not answered below, please contact EH&S (x14019).
A: If you have not already participated in the Area-Specific Evacuation Plan training on the OWL Portal, you can sign up here for a more detailed training on the plan. The actual building of the plan occurs in a Liquid Office form here, which is designed to ask the initiator for the pertinent information. Within that form is additional information to assist you in identifying the specific elements of your plan. Upon submission of the form, EH&S processes the form and sends the full plan to the initiator and department head.
A: If your evacuation plan is over a year old, it’s time to update it as soon as possible. Otherwise, it will be time to update your evacuation plan one year from the most recent update date (this should be indicated on the plan).
A: At least annually to ensure that the information in the plan is realistic and current. The plan should also be updated whenever changes are made to equipment, personnel, or processes outlined in the plan.
A: When creating a plan, it’s important to collaborate inside your department (e.g., Department Head, Safety Coordinators, or other members of the leadership team, staff members affected by the plan) as well as outside your department (e.g., leadership at your relocation points, support services, Environmental Health & Safety).
A: Every plan is required to establish an external relocation point outside the building at least 75 feet from the building and not in the way of emergency responders (e.g., not in a fire lane or parking lot entrance).
For departments within a healthcare occupancy, internal relocation points may be designated in order to “Defend In Place” and continue patient care without having to evacuate to the outside. For most patient care areas it will make sense to establish primary and secondary relocation points on the same floor. If your area is on third floor or higher within the Medical Center, it may be good to establish a vertical relocation point as well, which is usually three floors below.
In any event, you should ensure that the relocation points will have enough space (or space can be made in an emergency) for your evacuees, staff, and equipment.
A: Generally, one plan works for each department; however, depending on the organizational structure and location(s) of your department, multiple plans may work better logistically. For instance, if your department is located at two or more separate areas; and/or employees, students, or patients would be accounted for by different supervisors; and/or responsibilities differ between areas – these could all be reasons for multiple plans to be used.
A: Your plan should be accessible by employees, so bulletin/message boards, safety/disaster binders, staff lounges, and staff restrooms are much better options than locked desks, drawers, offices, or back rooms. It may also be helpful in some cases to locate the digital version of the plan on a shared drive.
A: New employees should be educated on your department-specific plan and procedures as soon as possible. Best practice is that on the employee’s first day, as they are being oriented to the general location of your area and their duties, safety protocol should be covered as well. Items to discuss would include the location of fire alarm pull stations, extinguishers, and exits; the look and sound of the fire alarm; and, their responsibilities in a fire/evacuation and other types of emergencies.
Current employees should have a brief refresher at least annually. Best practice is that at least some portion of the evacuation plan is drilled during fire drills, which are required annually for business occupancies and quarterly for healthcare occupancies.
A: The employer is responsible for training employees on evacuation according to OSHA standards; which, in our case, would be the Department Head or designee (the responsible party is outlined in the evacuation plan). The training that new employees receive at orientation is more general in nature and does not share with them their department-specific evacuation plan – this should be handled by someone within the department.
A: Updates to the plan can be made by using the Create/Edit Area-Specific Evacuation Plans form (credentials = outlook/login). In the first box, enter the Survey ID and click “Load Survey” button. The Survey ID number may be found on your last Area-Specific Evacuation Plan’s cover page. If after a review of the information, no updates are determined to be necessary, simply scroll to the bottom of the form and click “Submit”.
A: Once you have completed the Liquid Office form and clicked “Submit”, the form will be sent to Environmental Health & Safety where it will be reviewed and approved. Once your plan has been approved, the person responsible for updating the plan as indicated on the form will receive an email with the link to view, print, or save the PDF version of your final plan.
notification_important One Portal Maintenance
We’re cleaning up One Portal and removing outdated content to improve your experience. For more info or help, contact us.
