Developing an emergency exit strategy for your community is a critical task, and it requires a great deal of planning and care. Your community-wide plan should be a matter of priority, and it is a job that you will need help to accomplish.
There are so many different lifestyles within your community that it is challenging to develop the best solution for an emergency exit strategy. More still, it might seem impossible to get the word out once you do establish a process.
If your board has ever wondered how it can develop an emergency exit strategy and share that strategy with residents, this is for you. Here is the best way to establish an emergency exit strategy and communicate it to residents.
Get Professional Help
Unless you have an emergency response specialist living in your building and presiding as a board member, you will need strategic planning help. Emergency response experts can do several things, including:
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Assess your disaster response after an emergency takes place.
If you have already experienced a state of emergency in your building, then this would be a critical step for you to take. Your board must know what went wrong and how your community could have prepared differently. An emergency management solutions company can use this assessment to help you determine your community’s risk and needs and what mistakes to avoid in the future.
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Develop a complete disaster plan.
If you have already experienced a state of emergency in your building, then this would be a critical next step for you to take. Your board must know what went wrong and how your community could have prepared differently. An emergency management solutions company can use this assessment to help you determine your community’s risk and needs and what mistakes to avoid in the future.
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Provide community-specific disaster training and exercises for your building.
You must get professional help to establish personalized disaster training and practice exercises. These training and practice exercises will help community members and leaders have a plan that is just for your building. You must establish an emergency process that addresses your building’s unique features and the lifestyle you enjoy.
Remember, when you would have to get up and leave the school building in elementary school whenever there was a fire drill? As annoying and tedious as it was, it trained us as kids. If we heard an alarm sounding or witnessed a disaster’s beginnings, we knew that we either had to take cover or leave the building and head to safety.
For your condo, it is the same thing. The response looks like training on every floor and for the whole building. It means that every member of your community knows what the emergency alarm sounds like, and they know what to do when the alarm sounds. All of this is critical in maintaining the safety of residents.
Establish Emergency Responders
It would help if you also established floor leaders who will have emergency contact numbers (for persons not found at the designated place and time). Maybe, for every two floors, you appoint floor leaders who will do headcounts and other checks to ensure everyone is safely at the designated meeting place.
HOA communities would use a leader system that is more specific to their community, and board members of an HOA should lean on an emergency response expert for help with that.
Establish Emergency Locations
A condo is similar to a school in that it has many residents. As a result, you must establish building-wide emergency locations for residents to go in a state of emergency.
Schools have designated meeting spots and meeting groups in place to ensure that every person is found safe. It should be the same for your community. Consider having residents of every two floors (such as floors two and three and floors four and five) establish a meeting place. According to what floor they live on, grouping residents is a great way to keep everyone’s track.
Again, an HOA community would have a different system for establishing emergency locations, and that is why having a disaster response expert is so critical. They have vital tips and tools that you can use in a state of emergency to secure your residents’ safety.
Re-visit Your Strategy Annually
As much as we would like to think otherwise, things change, and it is important to re-visit your strategy and think about whether there is any room to improve on it. Remember that emergency response solutions company you reached out to for help? You must connect with them every year to ensure that you are keeping up with your drills, preparation, and everything you need for any emergency.
Dispelling Misconceptions
Some people believe that preparing for a community-wide disaster is somewhat similar to designing a plan for your own family. However, this is not the case.
When it comes to emergency prevention and emergency response, there are so many conflicting scenarios that can take place and so many experiences that you could not possibly prepare for on your own. That is why you call in the experts, who will provide you with ideas and plans you would not develop without professional help.
Your Communication Solution
Communicating your building-wide disaster plan to each resident can seem complicated, but MaxTV Media can help make the process a lot easier. Our technology allows you to schedule messages (including emergency response training and exercises which let residents know when to come to an emergency response meeting).
You need a solution that can help you connect with residents no matter what time they enter or exit their unit. Need to do a poll to see when is the best time to hold a community meeting concerning emergency preparedness? Not a problem! Max TV Media has that capability too.
MaxTV Media offers a complete communication and engagement solution for the residents of your condo or HOA community.
Let Us Help!
At the core of every strong board is excellent communication. To learn more about how to better communicate with your owners and residents, promote alignment and transparency in your condo and find out if the MAX TV Communication System is right for you, contact us today!
