Emergency Response Plan Template

An emergency response plan template gives safety managers, facility managers and emergency coordinators one structured place to write down how their organization responds when something goes wrong. It starts with the plan owner, version and scope, then works through the emergencies that apply to the site, who can activate the plan, who does what, who to call and in what order, how people get out or shelter safely and are accounted for, and how the site recovers afterwards. It finishes with training, drills, review and where the current plan is kept.

It is broader than an emergency action plan, which mainly covers what employees do, such as reporting an emergency and evacuating, and broader than an evacuation plan, which covers one procedure. It is not an emergency response plan audit, which reviews a plan that already exists, and it is not a business continuity or disaster recovery plan, which keep operations or IT systems running; recovery here ends with a hand-off to those plans. An incident report records an event after it happens. Requirements for emergency plans vary by country, state and sector, so confirm the ones that apply to your organization.

The plan is in a binder in the facility manager's office. The named coordinator left last year, the contact list is two years old, and nobody knows who takes charge on the night shift.

An emergency response plan only helps if it is current, has an alternate for every role, and can be reached by the people who need it at the moment they need it.