February 2008
EMERGENCY!
Being prepared is everyone's business
By Andrea McGovern

Tanya Travis, general manager of the Lubrizol Corp.'s Painesville plant, says emergency planning benefits companies' bottom lines as much as it benefits the community.

In response to “an unprecedented series of disasters and emergencies” seen across the nation in recent years, the federal government released in January the National Response Framework (NRF) incorporating public and private-sector participation at all levels of emergency response.

The NRF emphasizes the importance of personal and organizational preparedness. It represents an evolution in response structures and replaces the earlier National Response Plan.

According to Larry D. Greene, director of the Lake County Emergency Management Agency, public and private partnerships are critical for success in managing emergencies.

“We’re all in this together,” Greene said. That includes the business community, which has long recognized the need for emergency preparedness plans to protect life, property and business.

Two of Lake County’s largest businesses have had, within the past couple of years, reason and opportunity to turn to their emergency plans. In both cases, events external to the company had significant impact on its operations and staff.

It was not a test for Lubrizol’s Painesville plant Tanya Travis, general manager of the Lubrizol Corp.’s Painesville plant, experienced in October 2007 the type of emergency for which her staff had long trained - the derailment of a CSX train carrying volatile chemicals. The derailment occurred close to the plant, which manufactures specialty chemicals used in lubricant additives, industrial fluids, fuel additives, process chemicals and coating additives.

Travis said company staff constantly prepares for situations that may occur within the Lubrizol facility so they are ready to do all that is necessary to protect employees and company assets and mitigate any situation that could have an offsite consequence.

“This perspective has also made us more prepared to support the surrounding community in event of an emergency,” she said.

Lubrizol’s ready response to the October derailment was noted by Painesville Fire Chief Mark Mlackak in a letter to the company in which he said Lubrizol’s actions dealing with emergency response crews during the incident should “stand as an example to all private-sector companies.”

Travis quotes the letter with pride, but said it is simply proof that ongoing training works.

To be ready for emergency events, Lubrizol’s plant staff of 280 employees includes 115 trained fire and hazardous materials responders, just fewer than half of whom are also EMTs. New hires are required to train in these disciplines and serve in this capacity for five years, but Travis says many continue the yearly training for the duration of their careers with the company.

Part of doing business

Travis said the key to preparedness is spending a lot of time trying to understand “what if?” Then you practice.

“We spend a significant amount of time on drills, but we’ve also had some small events that allowed us to use some of these skills and training and make sure there are no issues,” she said.

“What this all means to us from a business perspective is this – Lubrizol has a significant investment in this facility, in both people and equipment. But for us, being prepared means first of all to ensure we are a good neighbor. We value living in this community and we don’t want to impact it negatively.”

She said being prepared is simply part of doing business, one of the many things that have to happen for the company to be effective in their day-to-day business.

“You are not effectively running a business if you don’t manage things well,” she said.

Timothy Goergen, manager of corporate health and safety for Steris Corp.’s Mentor campus and the company’s defense, industrial and sterile technologies divisions, agrees that drills and training are critical.

“If you don’t do that, you’ll never be prepared,” he said. “We make the drills as simple as possible and very clear in terms of objectives. You want to get people out of harm’s way and notify authorities externally and internally. In an emergency you take care of the immediate hazard – address life safety issues.”

Taking it a step further

From Goergen’s perspective, business disaster preparation is a separate issue, “a business life issue.” While emergency planning prepares you for handling the immediate event, disaster preparation entails planning what you will do once it is over.

“These are interrelated; you need to plan for both aspects,” Goergen said, noting it is critical to know what your company will do to ensure long-term continuity of your business.

When planning for a disaster, he said, large businesses consider which systems are crucial to maintain operations, and who are the critical personnel. They ask what could be handled from auxiliary areas and what additional facilities would be needed. Can employees telecommute, and does technology in the area allow for large numbers of employees to be transferring data from remote locations?

“These are things you have to practice and test,” Goergen said. “You run the operations to see how far you can push the system. You test and retest the plan. You learn your limitations and address them.”

Another essential aspect of planning to consider is how managers will communicate instructions to the staff in an emergency.

  “You need to get a total picture of what you will do if a situation occurs,” he said.

During the July 2006 flood, virtually all the roads that access Steris’ Mentor campus were closed.

“We had to get this information out to our staff,” Goergen said. “The day of the flood we communicated by e-mail. The following day we put instructions on voicemail.”

Flexibility is key

In the final analysis, Goergen said, flexibility is the key to success in an emergency.

“You can write all the plans you want and practice everything, but you never know what will actually happen,” Goergen said, noting the tense hours of 9/11, when planes were unaccounted for and there were concerns for the safety of the Perry Nuclear Power Plant.

He said that although a nuclear emergency response plan was already in place, it had anticipated an organized evacuation of the area affected by a potential radioactive release.

“In that event, we would bring people inside, turn off the air conditioning and wait for the all-clear,” he said. “We had never anticipated the possibility of a plane plowing into some area of the Perry facility,” he said. In that instance the real enemy was panic.

“That event showed us a different face of an emergency,” he said. “People were already running on high because of the events they had witnessed. We went and talked to our incident commanders, told them what was happening and what we planned to do (in the event of such an attack). But when people’s loved ones are out there, we can advise, we cannot compel.”

Five ways to prepare any business for an emergency

Goergen’s advice for any business, large or small, considering emergency preparedness is to first develop a plan for an immediate emergency, considering the area where the business is located and the relative likelihood of various scenarios, such as fire, tornado, earthquake or other disasters. He said the first priority is always to get people out of harm’s way. Keep the plan simple and practice it on a consistent basis.

Looking beyond the actual emergency, realize you may have to take care of people who are injured and be prepared for that. Then, plan the measures that will enable the business to keep operating: identify processes and personnel; communicate the plan to employees and key customers who may be relying on you for supplies or services to keep their businesses running. Make sure you know your customers’ critical needs and address them. Make sure your people know what to do and make sure the system works.

“Don’t assume, plan. Test your plan and practice it,” he recommends.

Goergen said in the end, incident managers need to “make sure you don’t limit yourself to what a plan says. An effective incident manager needs to be able to turn on a dime to respond to what is actually happening.”

Know who does what

The Emergency Management Agency’s Greene recommends that companies without an emergency preparedness plan work through their security and safety officers to devise one.

Custodial and maintenance staff members are also key players as they are the most familiar with the facility and can identify clear exits and areas vulnerable to events like earthquakes.

Greene stresses that it is important to “have a dialog” with local authorities, knowing what to expect from them, and integrate your plans with local plans for larger emergencies.

“Don’t count on resources you don’t have,” he said. “Be reasonable. Have a plan that’s fundamentally solid and that can be adapted to different hazards. Stay informed. We all have to take responsibility for our own well-being.”

Andrea McGovern is a Mentor freelance writer.