What are the contents and requirements for preparing emergency response guidelines?

The core logic of compiling emergency response guidelines has always been to "start from actual risks and aim to implement them." All steps are essentially centered around the core requirement of "being able to be used in real emergencies." It is by no means a paper job that can be handed over by just setting up a template and changing the name of the unit.

If you have participated in several grassroots emergency drills, you will know that the first thing to do is not to sit down and write documents in front of the computer. You have to go to the work site first and draw together front-line operators, safety officers, and even maintenance personnel who often visit the site to review the risks. There have always been two voices in the industry. One group advocates that all foreseeable risks should be listed in full, and the other group believes that only high-frequency and high-loss risks with an accident rate of 80% should be captured. If it is really listed in a thick book, no one will want to read it. The common approach now is to strike the middle. First, select risks with high incidence rates and high casualty losses for special treatment processes, and then cover the remaining low-probability risks with a general treatment framework. This will neither miss core risks nor make the guideline as thick as a dictionary and no one will read it. I have seen a negative example of a suburban food factory before. Their early emergency guide actually listed forest fires as a first-level risk. There were not even a few rows of street trees around the factory. On the contrary, the most common leak of ammonia refrigerant liquid was only classified as a third-level risk. If something goes wrong, it will definitely cause a big problem. It is a joke that there is no on-site risk assessment.

Only after you have figured out the risk base can you come to the stage of setting up the content framework. At this time, there is also a point that has been debated for a long time: should compliance content be put first? In the past, many units used to prepare the first dozen or so pages to deal with inspections, including the basis for preparation, scope of application, and the list of leadership groups. When something really happened, front-line employees were so panicked that their hands were shaking. How could they flip through the official words in front of them to find the handling steps? Nowadays, emergency management departments in many places have relaxed their stance and allowed compliance content to be appended to the end of the guide. The simplest handling actions should be listed in the first few pages of the text. The font size should be large and the steps should be few. It is best for people without professional training to know what to do at a glance. Take the gas leakage guide for street restaurants as an example. The most conspicuous place on the front page is "Turn off the cylinder valve first, then open the doors and windows for ventilation, do not touch any electrical switches, and move outside to call to report the danger." It is enough. There is no need to put the terms of the urban gas management regulations at the front.

It's not the end of the story after you finish the first draft. It's like making a movie. You have to do a "test screening" to find out how many invisible pitfalls there are. It is best to conduct several unannounced surprise drills and follow the instructions completely to discover problems that you would not have thought of while sitting in the office. Last year, I helped a 22-story office building to revise the fire emergency manual. The first draft stated that "after a fire breaks out, the central control room of the property will issue evacuation instructions uniformly." However, during the drill, it was discovered that the mobile phone signal in the fire escapes above the 12th floor was almost zero, and the notification from the central control room could not be transmitted at all. Later, it was quickly adjusted so that the captain of each floor would be equipped with a dedicated intercom. After the fire broke out, the evacuation of the people on the floor would be organized on the spot. Just this small adjustment might save dozens or hundreds of lives in the event of an accident. And don’t forget to create “lightweight versions” for people in different positions at this stage. Security should remember the initial firefighting and evacuation channel guidance, administration should remember personnel counting and connecting with rescue units, and the person in charge should remember the time limit and caliber of accident reporting. There is no need to give everyone the same thick book, because no one wants to read it and can’t remember it.

Another requirement that is most easily overlooked is that the guide needs to be updated dynamically. It cannot be locked in a filing cabinet once and for all. New high-risk equipment has been installed in the unit, new fire stations have been built nearby, and new typical accidents have recently occurred in the industry. The content of the guide must be adjusted at any time, just like regular security patches for mobile phones. You can't just use the old guide from five or six years ago to deal with today's new risks, right?