Emergency Preparedness Week, May 2 – 8th, 2010 is an annual Canadian event that takes place each year during the first full week of May, it is a national event coordinated by Public Safety Canada, with the provinces and territories and its partners.
Activities are organized across Canada to raise awareness of the importance of having an emergency plan, to identify risks and be prepared.
Do they check if companies have management systems in place that verify that emergencies can be managed???
Emergency management raises the understanding of risks and contributes to a safer, prosperous, sustainable, disaster resistant and resilient society, not only in Canada, but around the world. Emergency preparedness assists to prevent disasters or significantly reduce the social, economic and environmental costs and damages when events occur.
It is also an important role in managing a business, be being prepared for all kinds of emergencies to ensure the safety of workers, contractors, responders and the public. It is important to know what actions are required in an emergency, what notification, communication and documentation systems need to be in place, as well as evacuation methods and outside assistance needed.
The area of emergency preparedness is outlined in the following standards:
There are many disasters tied with emergency preparedness from bomb threats, chemical releases, nuclear emergencies, pandemics, power outages, to earthquakes, fire, floods, tornadoes, hazardous material incidents, to technological emergencies-process or system failures, etc
Gulf of Mexico – Oil Disaster
The exploding oil rig disaster that took place in the Gulf of Mexico, April 20th, 2010 illustrates the risks of drilling in offshore waters and the environmental devastation of 5,000 to 7,000 barrels a day of oil damaging our ecosystem and the economic livelihood for those living and working in the area, as well as the impact on the world for food and higher oil prices.
The following questions should be asked.
- Did the company have a management system in place to international standards?
- ISO 9001 – Quality management. If not, why not?? If it had an international management system in place it would have identified its processes and risks. Did it look at worst case scenarios? Were procedures and inspections in place? Were they followed? Who checks?
- ISO 14001- Environmental management. If not, why not, when it has a huge impact, not only for the company, but for the world.
- If the company had identified its risks, who audited the company to ensure that its management system structure was in place to monitor and measure these risks so that disasters would not occur or that a back-up system was in place.
- What did this company’s emergency preparedness program state??? Who reviewed it? Or why was it not reviewed????
My conclusion is that companies and government need management system structures in place to ensure that risks are managed.
ISO standards should not be voluntary, but mandatory as they impact us all around the world.
Key parts of an emergency management system to international standards would consist of:
Step 1: Identify – Planning – Prevention & Mitigation, Identification of Processes and their Risks, Legal, and Plans.
Step 2: Insure – Implementation – Preparedness – Responding and managing actions through emergency response plans (documentation & records), assistance partnerships – roles/responsibilities, resource inventories, training, and equipment. Response – managing consequences, communications, search & rescue. Checking- inspections, corrective actions. Recovery – Repair or Restore
Step 3: Improve – Audits and Management Reviews – Continuous Improvement of emergency management practices and processes.
Pilot Performance provides online webinars in Emergency Preparedness Planning.
