Emergency Evacuation Planning for Your Workplace: From Chaos to Life-Saving Solutions

Jim Burtles, KLJ, CMLJ, FBCI

Nov 2014 · Rothstein Publishing

About this ebook

Would your routine office fire drill be able to handle the large-scale chaos of a major disaster? Can you get everyone out safely in the face of a factory fire, explosion, or natural disaster? In Emergency Evacuation Planning for Your Workplace: From Chaos to Life-Saving Solutions, Jim Burtles leads you step-by-step through a planning methodology that saves lives. You can be assured your company will be ready and that everyone will know what to do -- whatever the nature of the emergency.

In one practical, easy-to-read resource, Burtles helps you create a comprehensive plan to evacuate people of all ages and health conditions from workplaces such as small offices, skyscrapers, stores, industrial plants, hospitals, college campuses, and more. His carefully constructed methodology leads you through the development of organization-wide plans - ensuring that your procedures align with best practices, relevant regulations, sound governance, and corporate responsibility.

His five stages of an Emergency Evacuation Planning (EEP) Lifecycle include:

1. Set up the EEP program – Bring management on board, get executive buy-in and policy approval to proceed.
2. Embed EEP into the corporate culture – Begin your awareness campaign immediately, getting the message out to the community you are serving.
3. Understand the environment – Explore which areas of the organization have emergency plans and which need to be covered in your overall EEP/
4. Agree upon an EEP strategy – Work closely with people who know the premises to identify threats that could trigger an emergency, and visit and evaluate potential exit points.
5. Develop evacuation procedures – Look at the people, their probable locations, their existing challenges. Determine if you will need one plan or a suite of plans.
6. Exercise and maintain the EEP– Run regular exercises to familiarize everyone with plans and choices – as often as needed to accommodate changing personnel and individual needs. Because this a long-term process, go back to the earlier parts of the cycle and review the plan to keep it current.

Thought-provoking discussion questions, real-life case studies and examples, comprehensive index, and detailed glossary facilitate both college and professional instruction.

Downloadable resources and tools – practical toolkit full of innovative and field-tested plans, forms, checklists, tips, and tools to support you as you set up effective workplace evacuation procedures.

Instructor's Manual available for use by approved adopters in college courses and professional development training.

About the author

Jim Burtles KLJ, MMLJ, Hon FBCI is a well-known and respected leader within the business continuity profession. Now semi-retired and living in West London, he can look back and reflect upon the lessons learned from a wealth of experience gained in some 40 years of practice, spread across 4 continents and 24 countries. He was granted Freedom of the City of London in 1992, received a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2001, and was awarded an Honorary Fellowship by the Business Continuity Institute (BCI) in 2010. In 2005, he was granted the rank of a Knight of Grace in the Military and Hospitaller Order of St. Lazarus of Jerusalem, an ancient and charitable order which cares for those afflicted with leprosy and similar debilitating diseases.Working as an IBM field engineer, in the mid-70s he took on the role of a rescue engineer, helping customers recover their damaged systems in the wake of fires, floods, and bombings. This type of work was the beginning of what later became known as disaster recovery. During the 80s, he became an early pioneer of what was then the emerging business continuity profession. In 1994 he helped to found the Business Continuity Institute (BCI) and now serves on its Global Membership Council, representing the interests of the worldwide membership. His practical experience includes hands-on recovery work with victims of traumatic events such as explosions, earthquakes, storms, and fires. This includes technical assistance and support in 90-odd disasters, as well as advice and guidance for clients in over 200 emergency situations.Over the past 40 years, Jim Burtles has introduced more than 3,500 people into the business continuity profession through formal training programs and has provided specialist training for another 800 or so through workshops covering specific subjects or skill areas. For several years he was a regular visiting lecturer at Coventry University.Recent published works include Coping with a Crisis: A Counselor’s Guide to the Restabilization Process, 2011, and Emergency Evacuation Planning for Your Workplace: From Chaos to Life-Saving Solutions, published by Rothstein Publishing in August 2013.