People procedures Evacuation

The procedures must take account of those people who may have difficulty in escaping quickly from a building or partially completed structure because of their location or a disability. Insurance companies and other responsible people may need to be consulted where special procedures are necessary to protect buildings and plant during or after people have evacuated. 

Public attention was again drawn to dioxin in July 1976 when an explosion at Givaudan s factory at Seveso, Northern Italy, released a vapour cloud of 2,4,5-trichlorophenol, containing dioxin, over the surrounding area. The accident was caused because process operatives did not follow the set procedure. As a result many people were evacuated from their homes for up to two years and a number of women elected abortion because of the potential danger to their unborn children. 

Depending upon the number of people at a facility and their familiarity with response and evacuation procedures, it may be necessary to supplement signals with verbal instructions delivered by public address equipment, radios, or automated telephone systems. For reliability at any time of day, a system using verbal instructions must be located in a regularly manned job station such as a control room or gate house. 

Emergency Procedures for Employees With Disabilities in Office Occupancies (publication FA-154) Orientation Manual for First Responders on the Evacuation of People With Disabilities (publication FA-235)... 

The socio-economic impacts of an emergency response plan relate to social agitation (industry production, social network), anxiety of the workers and the population at large, monetary costs (direct and indirect costs of protective actions) etc. In the proposed methodology, the number of people participating in the evacuation procedure and the number of people to be sheltered measure the socio-economic impacts of an ERP. More precisely, the number of people taking part in a protective action is to be minimized (see also Papazoglou et ai, 1997). 

Emergency procedures for evacuating people from inside the column and for rescuing any person injured inside must be prepared and approved by the officer responsible for safety. The work crew should be well-trained in implementing this procedure. First aid and standby medical aid should be available. 

If there was an emergency and the site had to be evacuated, how would you know who or how many people were on-site You can see that there has to be a procedure for logging people in and out, so that the main contractor can identify who is on-site at any one time. 

Some emergency procedures that require immediate evacuation present ethical dilemmas if injured persons who cannot remove themselves might be left behind. There is no simple answer to this dilemma. Most people would put themselves at some risk to help save another, but there are circumstances when a victim s injuries may be fatal or it may simply be the case that a small rescuer simply cannot successfully remove a very large victim/patient. In situations where someone is left behind, it is critical to immediately inform emergency responders who are better trained and equipped to rescue people. A worst case scenario is for one person to try to help another unsuccessfully and become yet another victim. 

Laboratory measurements use special instmments for highly accurate analysis and field instmments are used for a quick assessment of conditions. Some instmments are attached to workers (personal samplers or dosimeters) to monitor exposures. Some of these dosimeters determine directly if an exposure exceeds the 8-hr TWA. Arrays of sensors, analysis equipment, and alarm systems are managed by computers to provide continuous monitoring for releases. They warn people by triggering evacuation or corrective procedures for equipment. Many of the instmments require regularly scheduled calibration to assure accurate results. There are a wide range of collection procedures and devices. This discussion is a limited review of collection and analysis equipment. 

The cost of the Chernobyl accident was enormous. Many people died, and several hundred were hospitalized. Thousands of people had to be evacuated and resettled. The accident was the direct result of a faulty reactor coupled with a disregard of reactor safety procedures. 

The measures needed to overcome behavioural problems and ensure safe evacuation of people in the event of a fire >- Emergency evacuation procedures >- Assisting disabled people to escape. 

The characteristics of the occupants and the building People who are wide awake, fit and mentally alert have the potential to escape quickly whereas others who may be less fit or alert will take longer to escape. In some cases individuals may be unconscious or non-ambulant in which case they will need extra consideration when planning emergency evacuation procedures. In the case of secure accommodation, e.g. detention centres and prisons, the occupants of a building may wish to leave faster than the emergency procedure allows. 

However, in addition to these occupancy factors there are a number of other important aspects that influence people s behavior at the time of a fire emergency in a building, which must be considered when developing and managing an emergency evacuation procedure, including ... 

Where people shouid assembie after they have left the workplace and procedures for checking whether the workplace has been evacuated >- Identification of key escape routes, how people can gain access to them and escape from them to places of safety... 

Deployment - as with other key roles that assist in the emergency evacuation of people in a fire it is vital that, if the emergency evacuation procedures involve a fire alarm verifier, adequate management arrangements are made to ensure that there is at least one person available to fulfil this role at all times. 

Are arrangements for people with disabilities included in the written evacuation procedures Are arrangements periodically reviewed ... 

The object of a fire evacuation procedure is to practise good evacuation behaviour, so that people do not experience or develop serious health effects associated with being exposed to the effects of fire. 

In order to test evacuation procedures it is important to achieve as much realism as possible. The procedure will not be fully tested if people think that the actual emergency escape routes cannot be used. 

A responsible person must establish a procedure for dealing with a fire including regular fire response exercises and drills. The procedure should identify the circumstances that trigger the emergency. Who and how the evacuation should take place and when people should be allowed to return to the workplace [15(2)(a), (b) and (c)]. 

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