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?