Emergency Evacuation Planning: The Overlooked Security Essential

A fire alarm goes off at your Memphis office building. The announcement instructs everyone to evacuate. People file toward the exits, gathering at the designated assembly point in the parking lot. And then, while everyone's focused on accounting for personnel and waiting for the all-clear, someone walks through the now-empty building and helps themselves to laptops, wallets, and equipment left on desks.

This happens more often than most building managers realize. An evacuation creates a specific security vulnerability: the building is populated, then suddenly it isn't, and the transition isn't always well-managed from a security perspective. You're focused on getting people out. But you're also focused on keeping your assets in.

What a Security-Conscious Evacuation Plan Includes

A proper evacuation plan addresses three phases: the initial evacuation, the secure building condition during the all-clear wait, and the re-entry process. Most plans handle the first phase adequately. The second and third phases are where gaps appear.

During the initial evacuation, security officers should be positioned to prevent unauthorized entry as people leave. This seems counterintuitive, but it matters. You don't want people from adjacent businesses or the street flowing into your evacuation zone and mingling with your evacuated employees. You also don't want someone entering the building through the evacuation flow under the cover of the exodus.

Officers should be assigned to specific exit points, with a clear communication protocol for reporting when their zone is clear. This allows the security supervisor to confirm that the building has been evacuated in an orderly fashion, rather than just assuming it has been.

The Vulnerable Minutes During Evacuation

The period between the building being evacuated and the fire department declaring it safe to re-enter is the highest-risk window. The building is empty, everyone is at the assembly point, and the security presence has to cover both the assembly point and the building perimeter simultaneously.

If you have only one security officer, this is a significant challenge. You need to decide whether the priority is the building or the evacuated staff. Ideally, your coverage allows for both. If it doesn't, the building should take priority during this phase, because that's where the irreversible loss occurs. Your evacuated staff are in a parking lot, generally in a group, with less exposure than an empty building.

For properties in Memphis's Downtown and Medical District, where buildings are taller and evacuation takes longer, this is an even more critical consideration. Multi-floor evacuation creates a longer period of vulnerability, and the building complexity means more potential points of entry to manage.

Re-Entry Protocols

The re-entry process needs its own protocol. Who determines it's safe to re-enter? How is that communicated to the security team? How do you verify that the building is actually secure before allowing personnel back in?

The most common failure here is re-entry that's too fast. Someone from building management decides the alarm was a false trigger or a minor incident, and they authorize re-entry without confirming with security that all zones have been checked. Then people are back in the building while a security officer is still doing a final walkthrough, and the two populations are moving through the same space without coordination.

A better approach: the security supervisor confirms building clearance, communicates that to the incident commander or building manager, and only then authorizes re-entry. This adds 90 seconds to the process and prevents the confusion of a partially re-occupied building during a final security sweep.

Tabletop Exercises and Training

An evacuation plan that's only on paper isn't a plan. It needs to be practiced, at minimum annually, and the practice needs to include the security team, building management, and as many staff members as possible.

The exercise doesn't need to be elaborate. A tabletop discussion where people walk through their role in an evacuation, followed by a brief physical walkthrough of the exit routes and assembly point, catches most of the gaps that would otherwise show up in a real event.

Our security officer programs include evacuation protocol development and training as part of our standard service for commercial properties. We work with building managers to create plans that address both life safety and asset protection, and we train officers on the specific protocols for each property. Call (202) 222-2225 or contact us to learn more.