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HospitalityCritical operations, then evacuate
Your role in the plan is to stay briefly after the alarm to shut down equipment that could be damaged if left running or create additional hazards to emergency responders, such as gas or electrical systems. You follow the plan's detailed procedure and leave before your way out is blocked. It follows the federal rule for emergency action plans, as OSHA explains it in its evacuation eTool.
Free to startScenarios
- Immediate evacuation of all employees when the alarm sounds: the preferred approach, and the one most small businesses take.
- Designated employees stay behind briefly to shut down gas or electrical systems, or other special equipment.
- Services that cannot be shut down for every alarm, such as monitoring power and water supplies: designated employees stay with them until their evacuation becomes absolutely necessary.
The steps
- Know whether the plan designates you to stay behind.
- Follow the procedure the plan describes in detail for your task.
- Know where utilities such as electricity and gas can be shut down for all or part of the building.
- Shut down the gas, electrical or other special equipment assigned to you.
- Recognize when to abandon the task.
- Evacuate before your way out is blocked.
Safety rules that stop the station
- If you are not designated to stay, evacuate when the alarm sounds.
To pass
- If anyone stays behind, the plan describes in detail the procedures they follow.
- Everyone who stays behind can recognize when to abandon the task and evacuate before the way out is blocked.
- The employer reviewed whether total and immediate evacuation is possible for each type of emergency.
Official source
Federal · OSHA eTool, 29 CFR 1910.38
Emergency Action Plan: Evacuation Elements (Evacuation Plans and Procedures eTool)
OSHA's evacuation eTool explains, free, the evacuation elements: wardens, routes and exits, critical operations and the head count.
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