MANAGING FOR EMERGENCIES: WHAT TO DO BEFORE, DURING, AND AFTER DISASTER STRIKES
Sian Brannon and Kimberly Wells
Your most important tool during an emergency is your staff. A properly trained and prepared staff can provide the experience, knowledge, and energy that is needed desperately during a crisis. It is important to have everyone in your organization prepared ahead of time so they know what is expected of them in an emergency.
COMMUNICATION
All emergency training and preparation is useless if you cannot get important information to your staff. You need a system to get information relayed quickly.
EMERGENCY MANUAL
A must-have for every branch of your library is a manual detailing procedures to follow. It is recommended that your manual be in a three-ring binder with visible dividers and a table of contents to provide swift and easy access to the appropriate procedures.
One of the first instructions on all procedures should be “remain calm.” This reminds the staff to not overreact, to set a good example for those around them, and to let those around them know that there is someone in control of the situation.
Phone numbers in the manual should include home numbers for directors and managers and after-hours numbers for your facilities and technology departments. Additional helpful numbers include Red Cross disaster line, your local mental health/mental retardation center, and suicide hotlines. Include a staff organizational chart with the emergency phone tree that contains staff contact information. As with all procedures, this should be reviewed regularly to make sure that the numbers are all current, and for staff members it is helpful to have both landline and cell phone numbers listed.
The binder should cover procedures for the following situations:
Medical emergencies. Remind staff not to discuss insurance information with members of the public and not to discuss the cause of any accident or conditions that may have contributed to the cause of an accident. The main concern of the staff should be the well-being of people who have been injured or become ill. The procedure should also state what staff should do after an emergency, such as fill out an incident report form.
Tornados and other severe weather. Remind staff where their “safe areas” are. It is important to let them know under what conditions they should begin moving patrons to this area. All locations should have a weather radio to provide them with the most up-to-date information.
Power outage. Staff should know where flashlights are in their area. Remind them to check the public bathrooms. Only staff trained to handle your electrical system should attempt to trip breakers. Electricity is not something to experiment with.
Flooding. Include basic steps to take regarding electricity and protecting the collection.
Chemical spills and fire. In these cases have staff use cell phones to make the emergency calls so they can quickly leave the building as they are sharing information. Include a chart that shows the location of all fire extinguishers.
Phone/bomb threats. Have a checklist in this section with questions to ask a caller and details to write down regarding their demeanor/voice. Tell staff not to discuss the threat with the public. Also include steps for receiving a written threat or suspicious object on the premises.
Explosions. This is a good place to list some of the signs of a possible gas leak.
Workplace violence
Hostage situations
Evacuation. Identify a safe spot outside of your library that all staff know as a place to meet during an evacuation. Include actual maps of your building in this section if possible. Review this with the staff during regular meetings to make sure all new employees and transfer employees know where to go. Some place that is perfect during the day may have no street lights and thus be unsuitable for meeting in the evening. Have procedures in place about what to do about unaccompanied children.
If your municipality or school has policies associated with any of the above emergencies, copies of those policies should be in your manual as well.
TRAINING
It is important to train staff regularly on what to do in a crisis. The more prepared they are, the more able they are to handle a situation. Panic can set in when nobody knows what is happening, where they need to be, or what they need to do. Training helps keep the situation as calm as possible. There are many opportunities to provide this information:
New employee orientation. Be sure new staff members are aware of the locations of the emergency manual and the emergency supplies. Also be sure to add new staff to the phone tree.
Staff development day. Many locations have one (or more) days during the year on which they train staff on library technologies, updated policies and procedures, and the like. This is a good time to include a program on what to do in an emergency to ensure that everyone is on the same page. Invite a police officer to talk about what to do when a patron becomes violent or the fire department to demonstrate the correct way to use a fire extinguisher. The more questions the staff can ask, the more comfortable they will be in these situations.
Professional meetings. Many state and national library association meetings include programs on disaster preparedness. A member of your staff can attend and bring back ideas to share with managers and coworkers.
Staff meetings. During your weekly (or monthly) staff meetings always make sure to ask if anyone’s contact information has changed so that the manual can be updated.
Drills. No matter how well planned ideas are on paper, the best way to tell if something is going to work is to actually do it. This does not work for all situations, but in the case of evacuating the library or taking everyone to the safe room during severe weather a drill can help find holes in your plan. You may discover that the librarians and the circulation staff each think it is the others’ responsibility to check the restrooms. This problem can be addressed and fixed before a real crisis occurs.
The nature of an emergency is that things are not going to go as planned. Communication will be difficult and services that you rely on daily may be unavailable. Training and preparation cannot guarantee that things will go smoothly. But training does ensure that you have done all you can to give your staff the tools they need to save time that could be lost to chaos, materials that could be lost to neglect, and lives.