Evacuation Plan

An evacuation is the transfer of people from a vulnerable area to a safer area. Triggers include emergencies like natural disasters, accidents, fires and bomb threats. Building an evacuation plan is part of area evacuation. Having systems of crisis communication and management for emergency response is crucial to properly executing an evacuation plan. Alerting apps like RapidReach are ideal for this purpose.

What Is an Evacuation Plan?

An evacuation plan involves an organized relocation of people or animals from an endangered area to a safe area. This is usually done in response to a crisis or disaster such as a fire, bomb threat, or flood. It is essential that a structured and organized evacuation plan be created before an actual crisis takes place so that it can be utilized when needed. Crisis communication and management tools like wireless emergency alerts and public warning systems are great for organizing evacuations.

Important aspects of evacuation plans include having a pre-organized muster point where everyone should gather and doing a headcount to ensure that everyone is accounted for.

Evacuation Plan

Types of Evacuation Plans

There are 4 main types of evacuation plans.

  1. Emergency

    An immediate, total evacuation due to an immediate threat. This can be signalled by a phone emergency alert or an SMS emergency alert.

  2. Controlled

    An orderly evacuation for certain indirect threats that are not immediately life-threatening.

  3. Partial

    An evacuation that only affects people who are in the immediate danger area. The threat may not be severe enough to warrant a full evacuation.

  4. Internal People Relocation

    This is done in situations where the escape route is not accessible for any reason. An internal people relocation evacuation moves people inside the building to an area that is assumed to be safe.

Why Are Evacuation Plans Important?

Evacuation plans are extremely important for emergency preparedness and safety management. When you have an evacuation and use emergency notification solutions, you can avoid escalating the danger by introducing confusion or barriers to escape. Evacuation plans streamline the evacuation process and minimize the damage caused by threats.