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Safety Drills and Such

Started by Dirtman, January 14, 2009, 06:54:25 PM

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Dirtman

How many of your units/squadrons or safety officers have regular safety drills of some type for your unit.  Maybe fire drill from your meeting place, or tornado or earthquake drill from your meeting place, fire drill or some type of emergency drill for when you have been at another activity or campout etc.

I just finished reading where businesses/companies/offices/what ever that have regular drills on disasters have very high "survival rates".   One example was that companies in the Twin Towers who had "safety officers" and had regular fire drills knew where the stairs were and how to exit the building.  Those companies lost very few, and in some cases, no employees.

It just occurred to me that I cant remember the last time that at a squadron meeting or some other CAP activity or mission other than the "remember safety first and be safe out there" type of speech and being read the latest safety poop sheet from NHQ of anyone ever doing any type of walk through or actual drill...................hope I am not the only one!

RiverAux

Never had one at a CAP meeting.  I'm a bit skeptical about how useful a fire drill would be at my current unit or any of my past ones.  In all these cases, the way out of the building was obvious and there aren't really enough people involved to worry overly much about panic resulting in blocked access. 

I would think fire drills and the like are probably most useful when you're dealing with very large numbers of people in buildings with multiple exits, many of which might only be used in emergencies so that people may not be very familiar with them. 

Now, what might be fun (and useful) would be to have occassional surprise first aid drills (assuming your unit has had first aid training).  For example, your squadron safety officer blurts out in the middle of the meeting, "This is a drill.  Oh my god, I accidentally cut my pinkie finger off while whittling.  Someone help me."  This would serve as a good review of first aid procedures as well as familiarizing folks with where the first aid supplies are. 

jimmydeanno

^I think that fire drills are important.  Not because people don't know where the exits are, but because people don't think rationally during emergencies.  Having a plan beforehand of where everyone meets is important.  Having a list of everyone is important, taking attendance afterward is important.

When I staffed E-Tech, we went to one of the engineering departments.  One of the PhD students was conducting a study on human behavior in fires and other emergencies.  He had a simulation set up that used little dots that represented humans.  Those dots had "reactions" built into their programming.

In the simulation a fire would break out and the dots would scatter.  The simulations showed that people have a mob mentality and herd like animals at the exits.  They don't look behind them for exits that are actually closer, and they'll herd together and kill each other through stampeding even if there isn't actually an exit at the location.

We do a fire drill twice per year at my unit.  We are on the second floor, have a really steep fire escape and main entrance.  It's a pretty small area with about 60 of us meeting in it. 

We have the fire routes posted next to the doors with a pre-assigned meeting place.  The sign-in sheet is located near the fire-exits.

So yes, we do them and I think that it's important we do.
If you have ten thousand regulations you destroy all respect for the law. - Winston Churchill