The plan must also address how employees will be informed that an emergency exists and how they should respond. The alarm system must inform “all affected employees” that an emergency exists and what their immediate response should be based on the alarm sequence.
There are three important questions that need to be addressed:
(a) Who needs to be made aware of the emergency?
(b) What do they need to be told to do?
(c) How will they be alerted?
Depending on the size and the magnitude of the emergency “all affected employees” may include all employees, employees who work for other employers in the same facility or nearby facilities, or just employees from a limited area. If employers intend to evacuate people from a limited area, they must have alerting procedures in place that can communicate who must evacuate.
The following list outlines the information necessary to inform the employees of what their immediate response should be. All of these criteria may not be applicable to all employers, depending on the size and nature of the place of work and the employer’s preplanning efforts:
(a) Notification – Making the existence of the emergency situation known.
(b) Level and Type of Response – The required response based on the extent and type of emergency.
(c) Nature of the Response – The type of emergency condition (explosion, chemical spill, medical).
(d) Location – Critically important in large facilities.
(e) Ambient Conditions – Environmental factors, such as wind speed and direction that influence evacuation or response procedures.
If the emergency situation calls for special instructions, determine if the emergency alerting system indicates the location of the hazard, the direction employees should evacuate, what the hazard is, and any special PPE employees must don.
The CSHO shall cite 1910.120(q)(2)(ix) if any of the following conditions exist:
(a) Emergency alerting and response procedures are not addressed in the ERP or the procedures do not indicate the action “all affected employees” should take (see OSHA’s Multi-Employer Citation Policy (CPL 02-00-124) for further guidance on how OSHA issues citations on multi-employer
(b) There is no evidence of an alerting and response system on site.