This document outlines a 6-point checklist for testing an organization's Emergency Response Plan (ERP). The checklist includes: 1) outlining goals and objectives, 2) clarifying roles, 3) notifying staff (or not), 4) creating a detailed scenario and narrative, 5) organizing necessary resources, and 6) setting expectations that the test be treated as a real emergency. Following these steps helps ensure the ERP test is productive and identifies any weaknesses or gaps in the plan.

1. 11/11/2016 A 6­Point Checklist for Testing Your Emergency Response Plan
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 Thu, Nov 10, 2016 / by Rachel Beavins Tracy
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A 6-Point Checklist for Testing Your Emergency Response Plan
We recently wrote about what makes an eöective Emergency Response Plan
(ERP), and step 5 focused on the importance of drills and exercises. Today, we’re
going to talk about what you need to have in place before you exercise your plan,
so you can make sure that exercise is productive.
Rather than a tabletop exercise where you simply walk through the plan in the
conference room, the focus of this post will be on a functional exercise where
everyone actually executes the ERP.
1. Outline Goals and Objectives
Before you begin any project, it’s important to start with your end goals in mind. Goals and objectives might
include:
 Testing evacuation routes and emergency equipment.
 Ensuring smooth communication between company representatives and local authorities.
 Verifying that employee training around the ERP is eöective.
Your goals will be speciñc to your organization and the scenario you’re testing. The important thing is that
you get clear about why you’re exercising your ERP and what you hope to get out of it.
2. Clarify Roles
Planning an exercise for your ERP begins months in advance, typically in closed-door meetings. In these
meetings, you’ll want to outline who the key players are.
Examples include determining who’s responsible for duties like:
 Incident command.
 Interacting with outside agencies.
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2. 11/11/2016 A 6­Point Checklist for Testing Your Emergency Response Plan
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 Interacting with outside agencies.
 Communicating with the public.
 Coordinating evacuation.
3. Notify Your Staö (or Not)
One important thing to note is that the team responsible for planning and designing the drill may not be the
same as those who will execute the drill. There are advantages to keeping it secret, like being able to better
assess your team’s response in an actual emergency.
However, this is only something you’d want to do if your emergency response planning is at a fairly mature
stage. For teams that haven’t executed these drills before, it may be helpful to notify employees in advance
so they can prepare. If this is the case, make sure to send out a calendar invite so everyone is able to
participate (unless your scenario involves not having key individuals available).
And regardless of whether you choose to notify employees in advance, it’s important to let them know
during the exercise that it’s just a drill so people don’t freak out.
4. Create a Detailed Scenario and Narrative
As you put together your plans, you need to determine the scenario you’re going to use to test your plan. Is it
a ñre on the plant òoor? An unplanned release of hazardous materials? Severe weather event?
In addition to choosing a speciñc scenario, your narrative should also include any special conditions or
circumstances you want to place on the event. For example, if you’re testing your staö’s response to a severe
weather event, loss of power might be part of your narrative. Or maybe you want to see how folks think on
their own, so you decide to make a key supervisor unavailable for guidance during the drill.
You need to set the scene in order to determine the resources employees will and won’t have access to.
Taking the time to plan this out carefully helps create a more realistic scenario, increasing staö engagement
while ensuring you have everything you need when it comes time to conduct the drill.
5. Organize Your Resources
Once you’ve done the planning work involved in setting up your ERP drill, you need to ñnalize the details to
ensure you have the resources you need when the day arrives. That’s because one boundary you want to set
on your drill is that everyone can only use what’s available on the day of the test.
A few examples of ñnal details you might need to address:
 Notifying local authorities if you need them to be part of the exercise.
 Any tech tools you might need, such as a projector, phone setups or mobile access to the EHS
Management System.
 Other physical materials like food, water and printed materials (like a scenario write-up or a physical
copy of the ERP).
 Scenario-speciñc prep, for example setting up a decontamination area for a chemical spill exercise.

3. 11/11/2016 A 6­Point Checklist for Testing Your Emergency Response Plan
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6. Set Expectations
Whether you notify people in advance or not, everyone involved needs to understand the critical importance
of treating the drill as a real emergency.
You can’t have people saying, “Oh, I’ll just call so-and-so and they’ll take care of it.” People need to be actively
engaged, staying in their role for the duration of the drill and demonstrating how they would actually
respond in an emergency.
Ultimately, an ERP drill should be designed to allow people to fail. In fact, that’s the whole point. What you’re
doing is creating a safe environment for failure, helping you identify underlying weaknesses and gaps in your
plan. Risk Assessment and Corrective Action tools help you ñll those gaps, so that your team is truly
prepared should you have to put your ERP into action one day.
Topics: EHS
Written by Rachel Beavins Tracy
Rachel Tracy is a writer for EtQ with expertise in environmental, healthcare and technology topics. She has a
master’s degree from Vanderbilt University and has been writing for businesses since 2008.
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