Emergency Preparedness Planning
by Dan Cunningham

As emergency service providers we take our jobs seriously.  In most cases we have no written Emergency Preparedness Plan or EPP.. This means we handle emergency’s by the seat  of our pants. To handle a large volume of calls due to weather situations, mechanical failure or man made disaster’s professionally, we need to have an EPP in place. Your plan needs to include the following.

a.   Describe your company’s role in emergency response. This will be the most cumbersome because you will have to identify a range of  emergency’s that may arise and develop a plan for each situation.

b.   Describe a chain of command. This needs to be detailed and take into account the possibility of your absence

c.   Describe your employee’s  role in emergency response. Identify their strengths and limits and identify resources for them to utilize.

d.   Describe the role of your office staff in an emergency. 

e.   Develop an emergency incoming call sheet, to ensure your office staff is getting all the information your technicians will need .

f.    Develop a list of equipment and supplies needed for each situation. Try to think outside the box. What will my employees need during inclement weather. How can I supply heat and electric when more than a portable heater or generator is needed?

g.   Create a list of emergency response partners. Equipment, lumber, personal protection, cleaning, employee leasing or security suppliers and after hour contact numbers.

h.   Develop an inventory tracking system to insure you know where all your equipment and supplies are and to insure they are charged off to jobs.

i.    Create a written on call and major emergency on call policy in your employee hand book and have each employee sign that section.

j.    Have your employee’s participate in continuing education opportunities , to insure they keep up to date in all areas of emergency response. It may be worth your while to have an instructor come to your facility.

k.   Set up a maintenance schedule for your equipment and demonstrate the proper use of the equipment to your technicians. Require your technicians to report any maintenance problems immediately  in writing.

I’m sure you will come up with more ideas, just make sure you write them down so there part of your  Emergency Preparedness Plan.   

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