Make sure you can get people safely from your location to a safe alternative site
Fire, hazardous material spills or structural damage may require you to evacuate your building.
1. Are there program participants who will need assistance evacuating your facility?
Remember to assign staff and volunteers to help these participants and have assistive aids/devises available to help with their evacuation.
2. If your facility must be evacuated, assign a staff person the responsibility of taking a head count to ensure all staff, volunteers and program participants have exited.
3. Practice your evacuation plan. When will you have all staff and regulars (such as clients or volunteers) practice?
4. Keep an "Agency Go-Kit". Include copies of your emergency plan, action checklists, phone rosters, copies of vital documents, credit cards, etc. See Section G: Agency Go-Kits.
5. Post a notice indicating where you have gone. Note appropriate places for notices: The following suggestions anticipate that you must evacuate your building and that you are responsible for the care and shelter of the people you serve.
6. Locate and secure a temporary shelter to be used (consider congregation sites, nearby community centers, schools, other residential facilities). You may want to develop mutual aid agreements with these sites.
7. Create a phone list and a system for letting the authorities, family and friends know where you are sheltering your program participants. "Date created" should appear on this and all lists and documents.
8. Designate and identify alternative transportation for moving your program participants to your temporary shelter, or to clients' homes, if necessary.
9. Assign responsibility for the care of your clients at the alternate site(s). Identify this person or persons.
10. If evacuated, what will your clients need that may not be available in the temporary shelter? Notes:
