Page 124 - Security Today, September 2017

EMERGENCY RESPONSE
hensive as possible and fits the needs of
your particular situation.
• Who is responsible for communicating
with both internal and external stakehold- ers during an emergency? There needs to be a clearly defined chain of command within every organization as to who should be responsible for communicating with each group of stakeholders (employees, first responders, etc.) and how they are going to communicate with them. There should also be backups to fulfill these duties in case one or more people are out at given time.
• How do we want to tailor communica- tions for different situations? Because each emergency event is different, response protocols can vary. How a bomb threat is handled within a facility is obviously much different than an active shooter. As such, the messages and their content that people receive need to reflect to proper proce- dures to follow for a given situation.
ADDRESSING EXTERNAL
STAKEHOLDERS
Communication with external stakeholders,
such as the relatives of employees and students, is also paramount and can help organizations and schools mitigate the potential of a situa- tion from going bad to worse. In the aftermath of the recent murder-suicide at North Park Elementary School in San Bernardino, Calif., parents fearing for their children’s lives began flocking to the school while it was still an active scene. This type of behavior not only puts the lives of parents at risk, but it also poses a distraction for law enforcement who must make sure the threat is neutralized.
One way to avoid having a repeat of this situation is to get out ahead of it and send out a mass notification—text, social media change to voice broadcast call, email, etc.—apprising these stakeholders of the situation to the best extent possible and letting them know that it’s not safe to come to the facility. Designating a location beforehand that people can go to during a crisis in the area nearby and com- municating that in the same message is another good way to avoid having throngs of panicked people show up on your doorstep at the worst possible time.
INVOLVING FIRST RESPONDERS IN EMERGENCY PLANNING
It almost goes without saying but it is para- mount that first responders, namely local law enforcement and fire department officials, should be involved in the incident manage- ment planning process for any organization. Not only do they need to understand what the specific emergency messaging and evacuation protocols are of a particular business or insti- tution, but they also need to be familiarized with the ins and outs of facilities themselves. Knowing the various points of ingress and egress, locations of security cameras, and so forth will help them respond better at a moment’s notice.
Failing to keep first responders in this deci- sion-making loop or providing them with updated contact information for the princi- pals can have disastrous consequences. Just take the aforementioned report on the Vir- ginia Tech shooting, for example. It noted that police were not adequately involved in the decision-making process. The report stated:
“The emergency response plan of Virginia Tech was deficient in several respects. It did not include provisions for a shooting scenario and did not place police high enough in the emergency decision-making hierarchy. It also did not include a threat assessment team. And the plan was out of date on April 16; for exam- ple, it had the wrong name for the police chief and some other officials.
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