Weather emergencies and other natural disasters can strike any workplace, often with little warning. If you and your employees are not adequately prepared for these events, the potential for a catastrophe is heightened. On the other hand, when you’ve anticipated emergency needs and prepared your employees to deal effectively with the most difficult situations, the chances are excellent that you can prevent injuries and minimize property damage.
Furthermore, OSHA requires employers with 10 or more employees to have a written emergency plan to deal with emergency situations that affect the workplace, such as weather emergencies and other natural disasters. The emergency plan standard (29 CFR 1910.38) also requires you to train employees to understand your emergency plans and to follow required procedures. Your emergency plan should anticipate any weather emergencies and other natural disasters that could occur in your area.
Note that some of the weather emergencies or natural disasters discussed in the following material might not apply to your area of the country. You can delete any information that does not apply to your employees and your workplace—or you might decide to leave it in and discuss it briefly. Today, so many people travel all over the country on vacations and for holiday visits that they might well find themselves in a situation where they have to deal with a weather emergency or natural disaster that they wouldn’t face at home.
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Training Requirements
Your weather emergencies training program should contain these elements:
- Hazards of weather emergencies and other natural disasters
- Highlights of your organization’s emergency plan
- Workplace evacuation procedures
- Family emergency plans and disaster supply kits
- Preparation for different types of weather emergencies and other natural disasters that may occur in your area
- Safety precautions to be taken during weather emergencies and natural disasters
When the training is complete, your employees should be able to:
- Recognize the hazards of weather emergencies and other natural disasters.
- Follow workplace emergency procedures.
- Develop a family emergency plan.
- Increase the chances of surviving emergencies and minimizing property damage.
Use this weather emergency preparation checklist as a handout for workers to take away at the end of the training session:
Be prepared for weather emergencies:
- Listen to weather reports on radio or TV.
—Watch means severe weather is possible.
—Warning means severe weather is almost here. - Follow advice for protecting yourself and your property.
- Evacuate if advised to do so by public officials.
Be aware of weather emergency hazards:
- Falling trees, utility poles, and buildings
- Downed power lines—always assume the wires are live
- Gas leaks
- Flooding
- Lightning
- Ice, sleet, freezing rain, or drifting snow
Develop a home emergency plan:
- Prepare an emergency kit in case you lose power or cannot leave.
- Move to the safest part of the house.
- Bring in outdoor furniture, etc., if high wind or flood may occur.
Know and follow the workplace emergency plan:
- Respond to alarm signal or evacuation notice.
- Turn off equipment if possible.
- Perform any assigned emergency duties.
- Follow assigned evacuation route.
- Use assigned evacuation exit(s).
- Assemble in assigned meeting place.
- Notify your employer if you are unable to get to work.
The information in today’s Advisor is adapted from BLR’s PowerPoint® training session, “Preparing for Weather Emergencies,” which is included in TrainingToday’s Workplace Safety Library.
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Ready-to-Use Safety Training Courses
No matter the age of your trainees, you need accurate and effective content for your training sessions. Could you use prewritten, ready-to-use training content on more than 100 critical safety topics? Topics such as:
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Train for Compliance—and for Safety’s Sake
Unlike many training solutions available on the market today, TrainingToday courses are routinely reviewed and updated to reflect changes in federal regulations or best practices. Each training course is developed by BLR® lawyers, industry experts, and instructional designers who have experience across a wealth of industries, topics, and compliance areas.
Courses keep participants interested with engaging audio, built-in exercises, and key points to remember. At the completion of every course, individuals take a quiz designed to test for competency in all the course material presented. Quiz results and course completion times are automatically recorded.
Every course can be tailored with supporting and custom documents. BLR provides supporting documents for courses that include complete speaker notes and the answer key for the included quiz. As the administrator, you have the option of displaying uploaded documents and requiring review before the session begins. This is especially useful for company policies or worksite-specific information. Supporting materials can be added, edited, or removed at any time.
With only a few minutes’ setup, your company will have a complete Web-based training program with professionally developed courses, employee testing capabilities, and systematic documentation of employee training sessions and scores. And remember, BLR® TrainingToday courses can be delivered at individual employee desks, in computer centers, at training kiosks, or even in a classroom.
No wonder BLR’s TrainingToday® was named “Best Workforce Training Solution” by the Software Information Industry Association. It can help you launch a cost-effective and successful employee training program.
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