Findings from Chicago’s September 2006 CBD evacuation exercise published

The City of Chicago and the Building Owners and Managers Association of Chicago (BOMA/Chicago) have announced new communications and logistics protocols in the event of a large scale emergency in the central business district (CBD). These new emergency preparedness measures are the result of an ongoing collaboration between the City and BOMA/Chicago leading up to and following the large-scale evacuation exercise conducted in the CBD on September 7, 2006.

More than 3,000 people participated in the CBD exercise, which was conceptualized, planned and executed by the City of Chicago, BOMA/Chicago, ChicagoFIRST, and the management and tenants of the four participating office buildings located at the intersection of Monroe Street and Wacker Drive. The City's ‘After Action Report’ on the exercise released earlier this week includes the following recommendations:

- Existing communication protocols should be enhanced to ensure that emergency notifications reach intended recipients, including building managers, engineers and security directors, in a timely manner and independent of their locations in the buildings. The use of email forwarding to PDAs or pagers should be explored.

- All CBD buildings should be encouraged to participate in BOMA/Chicago's Emergency Alert Radio Network (EARN) as a redundant/alternative means of receiving critical emergency information.

- Training in emergency preparedness and evacuation procedures should be enhanced for building managers and security personnel who will function as initial responders in collaboration with public safety first responders.

- Building plans should be refined to differentiate evacuation procedures related to a building-specific (i.e., single building) incident and a multi-building incident.

- Building tenants should be trained to recognize that emergency evacuation instructions may change depending on the incident and that they should listen for and follow the directions communicated by building management, security, and first responders.

- The public and private sectors should continue their collaborative efforts to fine tune the City's emergency response protocols.

In response to the After Action Report, BOMA/Chicago has acquired the SWN Alert Service, a Send Word Now emergency alert and communications system from SWN Communications, Inc. Send Word Now is an on-demand, Web-based communications tool that will enable OEMC and BOMA/Chicago to contact building managers, engineers, and security directors in real time in the event of an emergency. The technology ensures timely and redundant communications with key building contacts who may be outside of their office or building when an incident occurs. Send Word Now is capable of sending thousands of messages virtually simultaneously through a broad range of devices and connections to any phone, email, or text address provided by the contacts. BOMA/Chicago is making the Send Word Now emergency messaging service available free of charge to BOMA/Chicago member buildings. As a public service, BOMA/Chicago is offering other CBD buildings that are not BOMA/Chicago members the opportunity to enroll in Send Word Now's messaging service at cost.

www.boma-chicago.org

•Date: 24th May 2007 • Region: US •Type: Article •Topic: Crisis communications
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