What is a Muster Point? — Does My Company Need One?

Assign Emergency Managers      

Evacuations shouldn’t be a disorganized race out of your facility. Set clear roles and responsibilities for each essential task that needs to be completed during an evacuation. You will want to assign one or more emergency managers for each department or floor within your workplace. 

Emergency managers perform several different functions during an emergency:

1. They check assigned floors or buildings to confirm staff have evacuated.
2. They supervise the shutdown of critical infrastructure. 
3. They take roll calls at muster points. 
4. They coordinate with first responders. 
   

Emergency managers will report to your company’s emergency response coordinator during drills and actual emergencies. This could be the company’s health and safety officer, security director, or another experienced individual. This clear chain of command will improve decision-making and response times. 

Designate a Communication Center        

Your assigned response team must communicate effectively. Designate an emergency communication center where your response coordinator will operate. This communication center could be established at one of your assigned muster points or a different safe location. Ensure personnel at this location have access to essential assets, mobile devices for communication and coordination, and keys to your facility to allow first responders the access they need. You need reliable methods for safety gear tracking, too. 

Document the Entire Process  

You will receive alerts for some natural disasters, like storms and floods. However, most emergencies businesses will encounter occur with no notice. That means you need to take the time to document every essential component of your mustering process and asset management during emergencies before disaster strikes. 

Document your assigned emergency managers, roles, and chain of command. Document muster point locations. If you need to identify different muster points for different types of emergencies, these must be recorded in your EAP. 

Evacuation routes should both be documented and clearly labeled. Contingencies for worst-case scenarios need to be considered, too. For example, brainstorm your response if there is no power throughout your facility.

Be Flexible          

Although emergency responses require a clear chain of command, employees still need to be able to react independently when an emergency occurs. Your EAP needs to be flexible and responsive to the fact that workplaces are dynamic settings that change hourly during the workday. 

Your plan shouldn’t be designed under the assumption that staff will always be in their one assigned location. For example, they might need to fill in another team or step away from their work on the production floor to do paperwork in the back office. Evacuation procedures must be effective no matter where someone is in your facility. 

Evacuation routes must be simple and appropriately labeled for staff caught in an unfamiliar part of your facility. Muster points need to be large enough to accommodate changes in capacity. 

Train, Train, and Train Again        

Develop a regular schedule for your company’s emergency preparedness training. Conduct evacuation drills at least annually. Drills help staff familiarize themselves with evacuation procedures, making them more decisive in a crisis. 

Drills also help emergency managers and first responders identify potential problems with your evacuation plan before an actual emergency strikes. For example, emergency managers for two adjacent floors might each have assumed the other was checking an in-between mezzanine level for stragglers. Or representatives from the fire department may point out that ambulances won’t be able to reach certain muster points you thought were accessible.

Conduct Regular Reviews          

Your environment will change. Buildings will be renovated, outdoor spaces redesigned, and neighboring buildings will change ownership. In addition to regular training, you also need to review your evacuation plan regularly to account for these potential changes. 

You should account for whole new types of threats. For example, if your business is located in an industrial park, did a new business move in next door that works with hazardous materials you haven’t had to deal with before? Do you need to develop a new response plan for nearby chemical spills? 

Reviewing environmental changes is especially important in urban and suburban locations where such changes are common. In a city center, a company’s muster points likely need to be on public property or adjacent private property. Do you need approval from a new neighbor to use their property during evacuations? Did the city unexpectedly plant trees in the middle of one of your public space muster points?