Page 31 - Occupational Health & Safety, December 2017

Because the ERT is dealing with mock patients, these response actions may take only one to two minutes. This is not real- istic and fails to test the plan and ERT. A realistic plant-wide test drill should require physical action and ideally would have real people pretending to be injured.
5. Emergency response drills need to in- clude crisis management.
Plant-wide drills test the ERT, account- ability process, and notification process, but rarely do they include the Crisis Man- agement Team (CMT). Due to a 24-hour news cycle and social media, it is integral that the information flow from the ERT to the CMT be released correctly and in a timely manner. For example, the ERT lead will inform the Incident Commander, typi- cally the plant manager or their designee, of the details of the emergency—size, scope, impact on the plant, potential impact on the community, and what actions are being taken by the ERT to mitigate the incident.
The Incident Commander will work alongside the CMT to help them handle calls from the public and media, moni- tor what is said on social media, develop statements to issue to the media and post on company social media accounts, and work with local emergency management on how to notify the public of the incident if needed. When necessary, the CMT also will coordinate with local fire, police, EMS, or other emergency management any ac- tions that need to be taken outside of the plant (for example, chemical release or smoke plume leaving the site). It is impor- tant to remember that the ERT relays the incident information to the CMT and the CMT releases the information to social me- dia and news outlets. Your CMT should be included in your plant-wide drills.
6. Emergency response drills need to be evaluated.
This step is critical to identify gaps and discrepancies so changes can be made to your ERP. I evaluate test drills for many companies, and some have conducted a basic 30-minute drill; others have spent the time and effort to conduct a realistic plant-wide drill. We always find gaps that need to be addressed to better reflect how the actual response should be handled; however, the short, non-realistic drills may not identify issues with the ERP, ERT, CMT and notifications.
7. Employees may not have the exper- tise or time to commit to writing detailed drills.
It is important to consider engaging an experienced third-party company to work with a plant representative to write, facili- tate, and evaluate the drills. A third party that specializes in emergency response and crisis management brings a wealth of expertise to help conduct and evaluate the facility’s drill response and, more impor- tantly, identify ways to improve, training gaps, or ways to adapt based on their expe- rience with other companies. I always say, “You don’t know what you don’t know,” meaning, if you don’t use someone with more experience to facilitate and evaluate, you may never learn what you don’t know. Having a third-party company with a wid- er base of experience help write, facilitate, and evaluate your drills is paramount to learning new ways to do things, as well as providing more credibility to your drills and training should OSHA come knock- ing at your door.
As I mentioned in the beginning, the
frequency of the National Weather Service alert test may not be feasible, but the goal of the test is the same: keeping your employ- ees, responders, and the public safe. It may take time and a financial investment, but the best realistic test of the Emergency Re- sponse Plan is a plant-wide drill, conducted at a minimum annually, that challenges your plan, response teams, and employees. A real emergency incident is not the time to test or learn if your ERP works.
Warning! This is a test. This is a realistic test of the Emergency Response Plan.
Chris Koester is the owner of Priority One Safe-T, LLC, an emergency response ser- vices and rescue training firm for industrial and manufacturing companies. He is also a captain with the Springfield, MO Fire De- partment and has 21 years of experience as a volunteer and career firefighter. He holds numerous firefighting and instructor certi- fications, and is an adjunct instructor for the Northeast Technology Center, and Uni- versity of Missouri Fire and Rescue Train- ing Institute.
www.ohsonline.com
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