Emergency Response Teams: Roles and Responsibilities
Evacuation Team
The Evacuation Team is responsible for:
- Implementing, placing, and maintaining proper signage on the property, including location plans. Such signs include fire extinguishers, first aid kits, and wet towels.
- Maintaining an updated census.
- Having a permanent staff to signal the evacuation of the facilities, according to the instructions of the General Coordinator.
- Participating in evacuation drills and real-life situations.
- Serving as rearguard guides during evacuation exercises and real events, leading groups of people to areas of lower risk and ensuring that no one is left behind in their area of competence.
- Determining safe venues and guiding people during a high-risk emergency, accident, or disaster to safety through hazard-free routes.
- Constantly checking that escape routes are clear.
- Providing alternative escape routes if the predetermined route is obstructed or dangerous.
- Conducting a census of people upon reaching the assembly points.
First Aid Team
The First Aid Team is responsible for:
- Maintaining a personal list of employees with chronic illnesses and having the necessary equipment for their care.
- Gathering the team at a predetermined point in an emergency.
- Installing the relief station as necessary to address the high-risk emergency, incident, or disaster.
- Providing immediate and temporary care to victims of a high-risk emergency, incident, or disaster to keep them alive and prevent further damage, while awaiting specialized medical care.
- Delivering the injured to external emergency units (EMS, Fire Department, etc.).
Fire Safety Team
The Fire Safety Team is responsible for:
- Using available means to prevent damage and loss to facilities following a fire hazard.
- Monitoring the maintenance of firefighting equipment.
- Ensuring that there are no overhead power lines or accumulation of flammable materials.
- Ensuring that firefighting equipment is easy to find and not blocked.
- Verifying that electrical and gas installations receive preventive and corrective maintenance on an ongoing basis to ensure safety.
- Being familiar with the use of firefighting equipment, according to each type of fire.
Communication Team
The Communication Team is responsible for:
- Maintaining a list of phone numbers for emergency units in the area (EMS, Fire Department, Police, etc.) and making them known to all staff.
- Making calls to emergency units during high-risk emergencies, accidents, or disasters, in coordination with the First Aid Team.
- Taking note of the ambulance number, name of the responsible unit, and where the patient will be sent, and making calls to relatives of the injured.
- Receiving information from each team regarding the high-risk emergency, incident, or disaster to inform the heads of the various emergency units.
- Having a bomb threat protocol in the event of a threat.
- Staying in communication from the agreement of the Committee until the last moment, or, if using portable communications devices, installing at the meeting point.
- Creating campaigns for staff to inform them about the Committee’s activities, membership, roles, attitudes, and emergency rules of conduct, to create a culture of prevention within the company.
- Issuing a report after each drill to inform the entire company of the results, keeping them updated on the progress of the industry regarding risk prevention.