Emergency Response and Incident Management
Preparedness
Know the site emergency action plan: evacuation routes, assembly areas, shelter locations, alarm tones, and shutdown points. OSHA 1910.38 requires emergency action plans for workplaces. Security's role is to notify, evacuate, secure, and direct responders, not to fight fires beyond training.
By emergency type
- Fire: activate the alarm, call 911, evacuate, use stairs, never elevators. Do not re-enter.
- Medical: scene safety, PPE, call 911, start CPR and AED.
- Severe weather: move to interior rooms, away from glass.
- Active threat: avoid, deny, defend. Evacuate if safe, barricade if not, fight only as a last resort.
- Bomb threat: do not use radios near a suspicious item; evacuate; record the caller's exact words.
Worked example
A fire alarm sounds in a warehouse. The guard checks the panel, announces evacuation, directs people to the assembly area, calls 911, and meets the fire department at the command point. He does not re-enter to retrieve a laptop. He accounts for visitors and reports a missing contractor to the fire department.
Traps
Silencing alarms without investigation; re-entering; using elevators; failing to account for visitors; giving unauthorized statements to media.