Emergency Needs Security

In the 1970's life was pretty easy. Hippies were the all the rage and the Vietnam war was ending and life, especially in Australia, was pretty ‘cruisee’. The only workplace emergency you really had to bother with was the classic office fire and it was solved by evacuating. Security wasn't all that difficult either. If a workplace actually had security they needed to stop staff stealing stationery. Both emergency and security were very separate concerns.

The 1980's bought us big shoulder pads and even bigger hair! But after the six day siege at Princess Gate in London where terrorists seized the Iranian embassy, suddenly security became a lot more serious and Australia started to formalise stopping things happening (security) and responding to things if they did (emergency).

The 90's consolidated the marriage between security and emergency. As air travel became commonplace and affordable, global issues weren't as far away as they once seemed. Then along came the Internet. Anyone with bad intentions could research information that was previously restricted or at least not that easy to find. Security was stepped up and emergency planning was formalised via Australian Standard AS3745 - 1990, the first version of that guiding standard we use in commercial emergency management today.

The new millennium and the World Trade Center attacks send the message that security and emergency would be bedfellows from this day on. Never before had improvised emergency procedures affected so many and the need for security become so real.

As Security and Emergency issues continue to merge, they start to become difficult to determine whether we are talking security or talking emergency, one issue needs to be clear.

Emergency procedures by the very nature of having to deal with many situations that are not accidents, but as a result of malicious actors, whether that be terrorists, protestors, criminal or mental health issues, must contain security related details and procedures. Any emergency response manual that omits building lock down, bomb threats, aggressive or armed intruders and more, is not worth the paper it’s printed on. And it’s because security and emergency has become almost indistinguishable, every Organisation needs a “wake up call”.

At CAPACITY Building Emergency Management, I regularly have tenants of the facilities to which I consult approach me directly for a copy of the emergency response procedures. Someone is ticking a box somewhere for some audit and wants a copy. The reasons vary but the response to the answer usually doesn't. Ask for a copy of the procedures for a building that you don't own or control and the answer is a resounding NO. The response has varied from demands to threats (Yes seriously!).

Here's the thing. Emergency Response Procedures are not a secret, but they are nowadays, confidential. That is, the procedures contain names, details and procedures that, if they fall into the wrong hands, could be used against the facility. It's like a sporting team giving their opponents their play-book.

In conjunction with property managers, I conduct regular training sessions for building occupants and I work with any tenant who requires information regarding the procedures for legitimate reasons, they just don't get to have a copy.

Once everyone becomes aware that their safety relies upon a level of confidentiality around bomb threat procedures, lock down procedures, secondary assembly areas and even the date and time of the next building emergency exercise, the more effective (and safer) their emergency response becomes.

Lives depend upon it.

This article first appeared on Linkedin and is reproduced here by the original author.