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Do you have a shelter-in-place plan? Even though you may never be ordered or make the decision to shelter in place, you need to be prepared. This week's articles discuss various aspects of sheltering in place that can help you in your planning.

This sample shelter-in-place plan can help you prepare your organization. (Item #1) Here's what you'll need to be ready to shelter in place. (Item #2) Ready Business offers succinct information on what to do to shelter in place. (Item #3)

Landlords have certain obligations under a shelter-in-place order. (Item #4) Here are some things to think about to determine if employees should fight a fire or flee it. (Item #5) This paper offers a chart of factors that lead to a positive shelter decisions vs. evacuation. (Item #6)

As always, we look forward to hearing about your concerns with regards to business continuity. If you have a topic you'd like to see covered, please email me at bmellinger@attainium.net

Best Regards,

Bob Mellinger
President
Attainium Corp

Quote of the Week

"If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend six sharpening my axe."

- Abraham Lincoln -

Articles

1. Shelter in Place at Your Office
The National Institute for Chemical Studies provides this general guide for preparing a shelter in place plan in the workplace. The document also provides a sample plan that you can customize for your own use.
http://www.nicsinfo.org/SIP%20plan%20for%20offices%20NICS%20feb2003.pdf

2. Sheltering In Place
Emergency Managers are promoting the "Shelter In Place" principle under some circumstances. This technique isn't new and has been used successfully in many countries around the globe. As with any emergency procedure, pre-planning is essential and requires some material purchases. This article includes excerpts from various related articles with tips for responding to a threat or evacuation order and links to other sites with more information.
http://www.avertdisasters.org/html/shelterinplace.html

3. Make a Shelter-In-Place Plan
There may be situations when it's best to stay where you are to avoid any uncertainty outside. There are other circumstances, such as during a tornado or a chemical incident when specifically how and where you take shelter is a matter of survival. You should understand the different threats and plan for all possibilities.
http://www.ready.gov/business/plan/shelterplan.html

4. Shelter-in-Place Orders: What Must a Landlord Do?
It's important for landlords to be familiar with their shelter-in-place obligations because providing shelter at a residential property requires the cooperation of employees, tenants, and any visitors who happen to be on the property at the time of the emergency. Here's what you need to know in order to comply with a shelter-in-place order.
http://www.nolo.com/article.cfm/objectId/7BFFA0A9-FA18-407F-A081C11F1FA1AC2F/catID/2B2E2666-FA8B-46D0-9DF743C08C2334B9/213/178/131/ART/

5. Fight or Flee?
A critical decision when planning is whether or not employees should stay and fight a small fire with a portable fire extinguisher or simply evacuate.
http://www.osha.gov/SLTC/etools/evacuation/portable_relation.html

6. The shelter-in-place decision: all things considered
In the event of a serious accident, emergency management must be prepared to advise the public on how to best protect themselves, and be able to manage large number of casualties among disaster victims and the worried well. The ability of emergency management to coordinate a response is based upon their ability in pre-incident planning and preparedness education, to quickly detect an incident, to determine its impact and spread rate, and to inform the public whether the best protective action is to evacuate or to shelter-in-place.
http://www.ema.gov.au/agd/EMA/rwpattach.nsf/VAP/(A80860EC13A61F5BA8C1121176F6CC3C)~AJEM_Nov2007_Glotzer.pdf/$file/AJEM_Nov2007_Glotzer.pdf