Earlier this year, the Mines Campus Safety Committee set a goal to implement emergency evacuation procedures for each of the university’s academic buildings in an effort to ensure consistency in emergency preparedness campuswide.
“The main problems we see are people milling too close to the building, some wandering back in before the all clear is given by the Fire Department and we’ve even had delivery personnel enter buildings during an evacuation,” said Barbara O’Kane, director for Environmental, Health and Safety (EHS).
Students, faculty and staff from Hill Hall volunteered to be a part of a pilot program that included the use of a building evacuation team. Team members were trained to direct people away from the buildings and to a designated assembly area, keep people from re-entering the buildings, communicate updates from the fire department and answer questions from evacuees.
During a practice fire drill in Hill Hall on Aug. 27, the building evacuation team wore red vests and directed evacuees out of the building to the west side of the Green Center. O’Kane attributes the success of the drill to the clear identification on the volunteers’ vests and their ability to give straightforward directions to students and staff.
“The vast majority of evacuees went to the designated assembly area. This is huge because we now have a central gathering point where we can communicate updates to the evacuees, and evacuees can clearly identify evacuation team members.” O’Kane said.
The team developing the new evacuation procedure consists of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering professors John Chandler and Scott Pawelka, Raymond Castillo from fFacilities mManagement, David Cillessen from Public Safety, and Dick Porter and Barbara O’Kane from EHS.
After a successful pilot, the team plans to expand the process to the other academic buildings.
General Evacuation Procedures
1. Leave class/room/lab
2. Take belongings if they are close at hand
3. Encourage others to leave; close doors behind you
4. Follow exit signs and leave the building at nearest exit
5. Do not use elevators
6. Move away from the building and follow building evacuation team member’s directions to designated assembly area
7. Re-enter the building when prompted by building evacuation team member
8. Do not interfere with Fire Department; direct questions to building evacuation team member
Contact:
Kathleen Morton, Communications Coordinator / 303-273-3088 / kmorton@mines.edu
Karen Gilbert, Director of Public Relations / 303-273-3541 / kgilbert@mines.edu
