In case of emergency

The truth is, no one wants to talk about emergency situations. However, if you don’t develop a plan before you need it, your emergency response is destined to fail. The key to getting your plan off the ground is to begin the dialog. Assemble your leadership team and ask, “What if?” Take a step at a time, considering every operation in your yard. Soon, you will get an idea of how prepared you are for a likely emergency.

For example, you might come up with scenarios and questions like this: “What if a worker amputates an arm at the shear?”

• Who goes for help?
• How are other people alerted to the injury (radio, intercom, etc.)?
• Who calls 911? Do they know where the phone is and how to make the call? (In some facilities, where you first have to dial 9 to get an outside line, the emergency number may actually be 9911.)
• Do emergency responders know where to go in the facility?
• Who will meet emergency responders at the gate and bring them to the injured person?
   

Or this: “What if we accidentally break open a scrap container filled with poisonous or flammable gas and we need to evacuate the premises?”

• How do we alert workers, visitors, contractors, etc. about the evacuation?
• Once people evacuate, where do they go, and what are they supposed to do when they get there?
• Who calls outside rescue?
• Does outside rescue know where to go?
• Who calls the owners of neighboring properties?
• Who serves as media contact? Does this person know his or her role?
   

The good news is that right now you don’t have to have all the answers to these questions because the emergency isn’t happening right now.

The key to emergency planning is balance. You want to think “worst case scenario,” but you don’t want to get bogged down in discussing far-out possibilities that rarely could happen.

The best way to qualify a scenario is by asking two questions:

• What is the likelihood of it happening?
• If it does happen, how bad would it be?
   

Building the plan

Building an effective emergency response plan is nothing more than developing a system to communicate during an emergency and assigning responsibility to ensure certain tasks are completed.

Internal communication. Think about your operation. How would you communicate to your entire staff that they need to evacuate? On the reverse, how would a single worker communicate to you (and critical staff) that someone is seriously hurt in the back part of the yard? From cellphones to radios to intercoms, the possibilities are endless. The key is to use a consistent system and make sure everyone is aware of it. Also, as part of a strong program, emergency evacuation posters showing means of egress and meeting spots must be located throughout the facility.

External communication. Most emergency situations require some kind of outside assistance. Develop a system that ensures that the call for help is made quickly and that the person making the call has all of the pertinent information to get the right rescue workers to the scene as soon as possible. Aside from rescue workers, ensure you have a system to alert neighbors and/or other operations if the emergency involves them.

Internal response. What are people supposed to do? This is a very simple question that requires a complex answer. As part of each emergency scenario, you need to develop responsibilities to ensure certain tasks are completed. These tasks can include:

• calling for outside assistance;
• meeting rescue personnel at the front gate;
• managing traffic in the yard to allow emergency workers access;
• evacuating to the meeting spot;
• taking head counts of other workers;
• shutting down critical equipment; and
• talking to the media.
   

When determining whether you would like workers to be part of a firefighting effort, remember that no building or piece of equipment is worth a life. Getting all of the employees out is a perfectly acceptable emergency response plan.

If you do in fact expect workers to fight a fire, they would fall under OSHA regulation 29 CFR 1910.157 and must undergo extensive training in using firefighting equipment.

External response. The best way to get an efficient and effective response from outside rescue workers is to have a great working relationship with them prior to your needing them. Meetings, familiarization tours and on-site drills will allow rescue workers to understand your operation without the chaos of a real emergency situation. A key point to remember is that when rescue workers show up on-site during an emergency, they are now in charge, and you are not.

Training

The importance of making sure employees know what to do and where to go during an emergency situation cannot be stressed enough. Emergency response training should be part of your ongoing training schedule, and it must be part of your new employee orientation program. Training should at least cover alarms and notification systems, evacuation routes and meeting spots.
 

Drills

Most operations will tell you there is never a good time to conduct an emergency training drill, but that shouldn’t stop you from having one. Having a drill will provide essential feedback on how in-tune everyone is with the plan. If a drill produces poor results, your company should require retraining and redrilling to ensure the plan truly works when needed.

This text is an edited version of the recommended industry safety practice (RISPs) for developing an emergency action plan, which was adopted by the board of directors of Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries Inc. (ISRI), Washington. It is used with permission of the organization’s Safety Outreach Director Joe Bateman. An appendix to this information provides a sample emergency response plan and is available online at www.isri.org/docs/default-source/safety/emergency-action-plan.pdf?sfvrsn=4.