Whether a natural disaster, security breach, or chemical spill, when a crisis strikes, you want to be proactive rather than reactive. Having a clearly defined and detailed emergency response plan in place for your business helps reduce risk. An Emergency Operations Plan (EOP) is an all-hazard plan developed for use to ensure a coordinated and effective response to natural, technological, or man-made disasters that may occur.
With companies of all sizes and natures, EOPs are unique to each company. However, we’ve compiled the top 5 important elements when preparing an EOP.
Consider all possible events
Many different scenarios and situations can affect your business and cause a ripple effect. Prepare for them all!
- Include situations of high probability as well as unique events
- Situations such as events caused by weather, release of hazardous material, domestic terrorism
- Explore what would happen and what would be the results
- Assess levels of magnitude of emergencies
- Assess time and effort for recovery
Assess Your Facility(ies)
Evaluate the areas of exposure in and around your facility or facilities. Who and what could be affected if a disaster occurs? Consider the following:
- Location
- Distance to homes and/or businesses
- Distance to water sources such as lakes, streams, wetlands
- Safety Systems already in-place, including responsive gear
- Utilities
- Ingress and egress
Evaluate all On-site Hazardous Materials
Take stock of hazardous materials at your facility and the potential dangers in an emergency.
- Chemicals
- Explosives
- Radioactive materials
- Up to date MSDS sheets for all hazardous materials
Organize Your Emergency Response Team
Know who is on your emergency response team – both internally and externally – and what they are doing.
- Define and assign duties to individuals and teams, including Management
- Sr. Operations Representative
- Sr. Manager
- Human resources
- Public relations – One Press Spokesperson – oral and written
- Environmental – HSE on-site 24/7
- Engineering
- Legal
- Document control – paper and electronic
- Train key personnel on their duties and responsibilities
- Conduct annual/semi-annual refresher training
- Assign specific internal teams to respond to different types of emergencies
- Manage communication – both on-site and off-site
- Managing recovery following emergency
Notify Federal & State Agencies
Ensure you communicate and report to relevant local, state and federal agencies – both oral and written.
- On or offshore
- Oil
- Gas
- Other hazardous materials
- Personal injury or death