This ten-step guide to creating an emergency plan will help you create your own building safety and security guidelines and provides some resources for several categories.

FEMA has historically offered a robust, comprehensive planning guide for protecting houses of worship. See the sidenote, especially if you are a Sanctuary Congregation.

Quick Tip

Our familiarity with our spaces can lead to us glossing over issues, and so the “tip” is to use these resources to assess your facilities from a fresh perspective. Remember to include in your mindset people of varying ages and abilities—we don’t all navigate or experience spaces in the same way.

1: Assemble Your Your Emergency Operations Team

Your team should include:

• Staff: Minister and Religious Educator
• A member of the board
• A member of the Safer Congregations team or a congregant with background in emergency management or first response
• Someone who brings awareness and sensitivity to the particular needs of the elderly and persons with disabilities, and persons from historically (and currently) marginalized groups
• Person with primary responsibility for congregational communication

2: Establish Contact with Local Partners

Think about who in your town, city, or neighborhood could partner with you in case of natural disasters or emergencies.

• Local police and fire departments can do an appraisal of your building and give you some guidance. They will be bringing a different perspective and will observe your building and grounds in a completely different light.
• If your community doesn’t have a community relations police officer, ask to speak with the school safety officer—they have knowledge to share. Sometimes asking to work with the resource officer of the local high school can help police departments understand what kind of partnership you congregation is looking for.
• Your insurance representative can do a review and make suggestions around safety and prevention. Most insurance companies have specialists in this area of expertise.
• Don’t forget your local charities. In times of disaster, often it’s those entities that have disaster plans in place.

3: Sample Questions to Prepare for Various Emergencies

The planning team should consider a number of issues, primarily depending on which kind of planning you’re doing—for natural disasters, or human made ones. Here are some sample questions to get you started.

• How to evacuate or initiate a shelter in place, paying attention to disability-related accessibility concerns when determining shelter sites and evacuation routes.
• How to evacuate when the primary evacuation routes are unusable.
• How to select effective shelter-in-place locations (optimal locations may have thick walls, solid doors with locks, minimal interior windows, first aid-emergency kits, communication devices, duress alarms, and perhaps access to food and water for natural disasters).
• How those present in buildings and on the ground will be notified that there is a natural disaster or an active shooter incident underway.
• How do you communicate instructions for the congregants: Shelter in place? Evacuate? Run, Hide, Fight? Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate?
• How everyone will know when buildings and grounds are safe.
• How to communicate with congregation’s members and friends when they may be scattered due to the nature of the disaster?

4: Roles and Responsibilities

In this step congregations determine:

• Who is responsible for initiating emergency shelter in, evacuation, orlockdown procedures? (primary and alternates)
• Who is responsible for ensuring there is a process for announcing a natural disaster or the presence of an active shooter, including notifying staff/volunteers in other areas of the building(s) (primary and alternate)
• Who is responsible for providing information to first responders (primary and alternate)
  • This is particularly important if you have elected not to share this information with local first responders due to congregational factors such as sanctuary congregations.
• Who is responsible for providing consistent and accurate information to authorities, staff, members, the UUA Region and national Communications office and the media after an incident?

5: Approval of Plan

After finalizing the first draft of the plan, the planning team should present the draft to the appropriate leadership and request feedback and/or obtain official approval.

• Consider other stakeholders in the congregation, such as your worship and religious education committees, as well as people with knowledge about special needs, and those who are from historical (and current) marginalized communities. They may raise additional concerns related to their areas of ministry.
• Once the draft is edited and approved by the stakeholders and leadership, consider how to present the plan to the congregation.
• A check of the congregation’s bylaws will determine whether or not an emergency operations plan will require a congregational vote.

6: Share Your Plan

Once approved, the congregation’s Emergency Operations Plan should be shared with first responders and/or local emergency management officials and should be made readily available to your leadership (hard copy and electronically).The planning process should include preparing and making available to first responders an updated and well documented site assessment as well as any other information that would assist them.

These materials should include:

• Building schematics
• Photos of the buildings, both inside and out
• Information about door and window locations
• Locks and access controls
• Information on access to utility controls
• Location of medical supplies
• Location of fire extinguishers

Emergency responders should also have advance information on where individuals with disabilities are likely to be sheltering or escaping, generally in physically accessible locations or along accessible routes.

Providing detailed information to first responders allows them to rapidly move through buildings and the grounds during an emergency; to ensure areas are safe; and to tend to those in need. It is critically important to share this information with law enforcement, fire safety, and other first responders before an emergency occurs so that they have immediate access to the information. Law enforcement agencies have secure web sites where these items already are stored for many schools, business, public venues, and other locations. All of these can be provided to first responders and viewed in drills, exercises, and walkthroughs. Every congregation should have more than one individual charged with meeting first responders to provide them with the site assessment, the Emergency Operations Plan, and any other details about facility safety or concerns.

The planning team should maintain a record of the people and organizations that receive a copy of the plan, and this should include renters that may use the building(s). These people should receive any updates and changes to the plans.

A Sanctuary Congregation may elect not to share this building information with local law enforcement. In this case, there should be a designated person who would meet first responders with such information upon arrival. This could be the person who opens the building in the morning or closes it after services or other designated person.

7: Provide Ongoing Training

Everyone involved in the plan needs to know their roles and responsibilities before, during, and after an incident.

Key training components include:

• At least once a year, hold a meeting to educate all parties on the plan. Go through the plan in order to familiarize these stakeholders with it.
• Visit shelter in place locations, evacuation routes, and evacuation sites.
• Provide appropriate and relevant literature on the plan, policies, and procedures. It may also be helpful to provide a quick reference guide with reminders of key courses of action.
• Post key information throughout the building. It is important that congregants are familiar with and have easy access to information such as evacuation routes and shelter in place procedures and locations, as well as location of first aid supplies and AED (if you have one). Ensure information concerning evacuation routes and shelter in place procedures and locations is communicated effectively to congregants with disabilities or others with access and functional needs.
• Familiarize congregants with both the plan and community partners. Bringing first responders and/or local emergency management officials, as well as other organizations that use the building(s), into the building to talk about the plan can be an important aspect of relationship building.
• Train staff and volunteers on the skills necessary to fulfill their roles. Persons will be assigned specific roles in the plan that will require special skills i.e. first aid, CPR, AED, Mental Health First Aid, providing assistance for children, the elderly, and individuals with disabilities and others with access and functional needs.

8: Put the Training into Practice

The most well written and carefully crafted policies and procedure are useless if they remain unknown and/or if the congregation does not know how to enact them. Sheltering in, lockdown and evacuation drills are now standard practice for most public and private schools in the United States. Our children and youth may be more accustomed to them than our adults. Practicing can also help with memory. Reading a policy is one thing; practicing it allows the brain to integrate knowledge in a different way.

Fire drill requirements are regulated by local, state or county government organizations. A building’s occupancy determines the frequency of fire drills conducted. Churches are referred to as “Assembly Occupancies,” which includes buildings such as gymnasiums, theaters, churches, community halls, etc. that are required to hold annual fire drills.

Federal law requires schools to practice fire and tornado drills several times a year to develop preparedness, while various states require facilities with paid, licensed childcare to do the same. (Check with your state government to determine where your facility falls under the laws.) These drills work to reduce the disorganization, confusion, fear, panic, and potential injuries that may occur during a live event. Some states have now added the required practice of lockdown drills.

Good planning includes conducting drills that involve first responders. Exercises with these partners are one of the most effective and efficient ways to ensure that everyone knows not only their role, but also the role of others at the scene. The more a plan is practiced and stakeholders are trained on the plan, the more effectively they will be able to act before, during, and after an incident to lessen the impact on life and property. Exercises provide opportunities to practice with local emergency management officials and community partners, as well as to identify gaps and weaknesses in the plan.

9: Planning Congregational Drills

Announce to the congregation a week or two before the drill of your intent to conduct an emergency drill. Tell them when the drill will take place, and what is expected of them. This is especially important if this will be the first drill. Unannounced drills should only be performed once the congregation is comfortable with what to do when the alarm sounds. Pay attention to the needs of those who are neurodiverse, have sensory issues, and/or may have had a history of negative interactions with law enforcement and other public safety organizations.

When a congregation is beginning the practice of holding drills, it is best to schedule 3-4 drills in the first year. After the congregation is comfortable with the procedure, yearly drills are generally sufficient. Holding regular drills helps familiarize occupants with the sound of the alarm system and allows your congregation to practice evacuation procedures, so in the event of a real emergency, you have rehearsed the procedures and are aware of what to do.

Expect the first drill to be chaotic. While not minimizing the chaos, help people to expect it and find ways to make the chaos more tolerable. The more the congregation practices, the calmer and more organized they will be. Also consider having a treats/goodies table to be able to celebrate the success of your drills—what better way to minimize the chaos after by providing food, drink, and small toys?

10: Review the Plan Annually

Once the plan is approved, the team should plan to teach the community about the plan and encourage practice, review and make periodic adjustment. It is important to practice the plan regularly since people may forget the steps, circumstances may change, new people may join and the leadership of outside organizations may change.

As the congregation lives into the Emergency Operations Plan, new insights will emerge, vulnerabilities and assets may change, relationships will grow in the surrounding community and the plan will necessarily evolve.

It is recommended to have the regional representative or account manager from the congregation’s insurance company do an initial walk through, and then come back every 3 years at renewal time. Risk control representatives will do a review, make suggestions and reevaluate the amount of the congregation’s insurance.

Reviewing the plan regularly is crucial to maintaining and building on a successful Emergency Plan.

Emergency Preparedness: Additional Resources

• Church Mutual has made most of its safety resources open to the public so you do not have to be insured by them to reach these resources on their website. The best way to access these resources is to go to Church Mutual, and then search for “Preparedness” resources. They have multiple checklists and you can also filter to include only those for houses of worship.
• The UUA’s Safety and Security in Troubled Times
• Side with Love (These toolkits are specifically for UUs.)
  • Climate Resilience through Disaster Response and Community Care
  • Courage, Risk, & Safety: Preparing for Right-Wing Threats Against Congregations
• FEMA’s Guide for Developing High-Quality Emergency Operations Plans for Houses of Worship (PDF) helps congregations plan for the spectrum of threats and hazards they may face. (See sidenote at top of page)
• The Lutheran (ELCA) Congregational Disaster Preparedness Guide provides templates and an outline for developing a preparedness plan
• Assist your members in preparing at home with Red Cross: Prepare for Emergencies
• Hurricane Preparedness tips from the US Department of Homeland Security.
• Webinar: Before Disaster Strikes from the UUA’s MidAmerica Region.
• UUA Disaster Response and Resources
• Resources from the UU Trauma Response Ministry
• Good Planning Blunts Impact of Natural Disasters (Interconnections Article)

Tabletop Exercises

For some congregations, it can be helpful to use “tabletop exercises” that help you run a scenario to see how your policies and procedures will work in “real time,” without being in a crisis. It is a good way to prepare. Church Mutual has openly available tabletop exercises for various weather related disasters, and well as human created situations. Simply go to Church Mutual and search for “Tabletop Exercises” to see the variety they offer.