Office emergency action plans: are you prepared?

Preparedness for emergencies to ensure safety in commercial high-rise buildings has prompted New York City to amend existing building code laws and propose new legislation that details a specific plan is prepared for numerous emergency situations that could occur.

Working in conjunction with experts in the field of emergency preparedness planning, carefully constructed plans will need to be written and filed, as required by NYC law. Within the next year (the exact date of mandatory compliance is yet to be finalized) all New York City Commercial office buildings will be required to develop and submit non-fire Emergency Action Plans (EAPs).

What is an EAP? An Emergency Action Plan outlines the procedures for a buildings response to a non-fire-related emergency involving an explosion, biological, chemical, radiological, nuclear or hazardous materials incident, natural disasters such as a hurricane or earthquake, or other emergency conditions that occur inside or in close proximity to their buildings.

Emergency Action Plans are professionally designed plans that include an official EAP document that is filed with the Fire Department and kept onsite at a building. EAP training and implementation manuals must be created for the buildings staff and tenants. Emergency Action Plans take into account the buildings size, its number of occupants, the number of exits/emergency stair pathways, how staff and tenants are to be notified of emergencies, the frequency drills that are scheduled and who is in charge in an emergency.

Emergency Action Plans must be kept on site and maintained at the Fire Command Station. The EAP Director uses the plan for reference in the event of an emergency, which places a detailed plan in action to deal with a variety of emergency situations should they occur. An EAP requires the designation of an EAP Director who's responsible for the organization and implementation of an Emergency Action Plan. The EAP Director is also required to serve as the buildings Fire Safety Director and must receive additional special training relevant to the duties and responsibilities of an EAP Director. The EAP Director is responsible to educate and train his subordinates and building occupants with respect to the procedures for sheltering in place, invacuation, partial evacuation and evacuation.

The EAPD must maintain records and log books related to Emergency Action Plan training drills just like the Fire Drills and other fire safety related logbooks are maintained by the FSD. Education of building occupants will be critical to the successful implementation of any Emergency Action Plan, as building occupants must understand the reasons for complying with the procedures that have been developed for their safety.

In every case the lead person who's in charge until official Fire, Police or other official emergency personnel arrive is always the Emergency Action Plan Director. There are many other requirements for other EAP staff. These include the Deputy Emergency Action Plan Director, EAP Building Evacuation Supervisors and EAP Brigade Members as well as Critical Operations Staff.

These assorted EAP officers are people who are on the buildings staff. An Emergency Action Plan must state exactly which people at the building are in charge in a given emergency, how emergency notifications and instructions are delivered to the buildings occupants (in most cases over the public address system or other methods), how often training and drilling of the buildings tenants is conducted.

Why are EAPs necessary? By planning for emergencies, we can make our decisions while in a calm state, unaffected by stress.

Hyline Safety Company will offer services related to Emergency Action Plans designed to increase emergency preparedness and satisfy all code compliance requirements for Emergency Action Plans.

EVAN LIPSTEIN

CEO, HYLINE SAFETY COMPANY