Emergency Planning Step 3: Questions

The planning team should consider a number of issues, including, but not limited to:

  • How to evacuate or initiate a lockdown, 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 have thick walls, solid doors with locks, minimal interior windows, first aid-emergency kits, communication devices and duress alarms)

  • How those present in buildings and on the ground will be notified that there is an active shooter incident underway.

  • Instructions for the congregants: 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?