UNDERSTANDING THE EMERGENCY PLANNING PROCESS
The most effective emergency preparedness efforts at sporting venues engage all stadium personnel as part of a system that extends through the local, state and federal response levels. In order to create this system, venue managers and the response community must work together to develop plans and procedures based on an all-hazards approach, taking into consideration the entire range of possible events and consequences. It is important for venue managers and the response community alike to understand the planning process in its entirety.
The emergency planning cycle consists of a four step process that continually replicates itself in a cycle. These four steps areas follows:
A venue’s emergency response plan should be written by a comprehensive group of venue representatives and members of the local response community that have the ability to integrate and adapt existing response plans to the particular venue. This committee should consist of facility operations, medical, and security, along with local emergency medical services, fire/rescue, law enforcement, public health, traffic management and others. This committee is often known as the Emergency Action Plan (EAP) Committee. It is important to reiterate that it is not the purpose of the committee to re-write local and state policies but to integrate and fine tune them to the venue at hand.
Once the EAP Committee has developed a comprehensive EAP the appropriate public safety agencies and venue departments must be trained on their role in this plan. At the most basic level, the training should include recognition of an emergency, activating the emergency response system, dealing with the situation until help arrives, and working within the system as events unfold.. More detailed training is tailored to specific sets of employees and staff.
The next step in the planning process is to exercise the plan. It is important to understand the different types of exercises, the components of an exercise and the order in which they should occur. The three key types of exercises are tabletops, functional exercises and full scale exercises. In most instances the first exercise to occur after the training period is a tabletop exercise, followed by a functional and concluding with a full scale exercise. All too often planning groups proceed immediately to a full scale exercise and waste valuable funding and opportunities to evaluate and revise the plan prior to this point. Another common breakdown in the exercise process is scheduling exercises to close together.
Each exercise consists of a planning period, exercise, after action report and improvement implementation. Failure to allow adequate time between exercises prevents the completion of all components of the exercise. The improvement implementation and corresponding revisions from the full scale exercise set the stage for the cycle to begin again.
Proper execution of the EAP planning process will greatly improve your facility’s ability handle an emergency situation when it occurs.
For more information on emergency planning and exercises please contact Medical Sports Group.