Article written by Dani Andrews

According to a Wells Fargo survey, 71% of Americans don’t have a detailed emergency plan in case a natural disaster strikes.

Given the changing climate and the increase in extreme natural phenomena, being ill-prepared for outdoor crises can significantly compromise safety.

Crisis training is an excellent way to help keep employees composed and equip them with good practices during emergencies at work. This training covers exercises for any natural disaster that may disrupt operations, including earthquake, hurricane, and even fire drills. With the increase in the number and intensity of natural disasters over the last few years, crisis preparedness should be an essential part of any organization. In fact, the past decade has seen nine of the 10 years with the most natural disasters, according to the National Centers for Environmental Information.

Organizing outdoor crisis management training for your employees is, therefore, essential to ensure their well-being during a catastrophic event. Here’s how to prepare your office for a day of outdoor crisis training:

Outdoor crises to train for

The importance of earthquake preparedness cannot be overstated, especially for businesses in vulnerable places like the San Andreas fault line in Los Angeles. Earthquakes, which occur 20,000 times a year globally, happen due to the sudden movement of faults within the earth’s crust. If your company is located in an earthquake-prone area, you can enhance earthquake preparedness measures through earthquake drills. During practice, instruct everyone to drop down in a safe area, cover their heads and necks to avoid debris, and hold onto a secure structure. Use the stairs for evacuation and stay in an open outdoor area until it’s safe to return inside.

Fire drills are also essential, as the US averages around 500,000 structure fires annually. Fires can occur due to faulty electrical wiring as well as natural phenomena like wildfires, and these flames can spread rapidly and engulf your office within minutes. Research shows that fire evacuation training positively affects perceived preparedness among participants, highlighting its importance and effectiveness. During a fire drill, you can instruct workers to stay calm and stop what they’re doing upon hearing the fire alarm, cover their nose and mouth with a towel or handkerchief to avoid inhaling smoke, and evacuate the building via the fire exit without panicking to prevent a stampede or crowd crush.

Preparing for floods should also be an essential part of your crisis drills, especially since 80 major flood disasters were declared in the US from 2020 to 2023. This is particularly crucial if your office is in a flood-prone area like Florida, where hurricanes are a frequent occurrence. In that case, your company must stay ready if water overflows due to tropical cyclones and heavy rainfalls. Flood drills can include gathering in a safe and relatively high evacuation area where you can wait until the waters subside. Drills can also include evacuation exercises to avoid confusion and panic in the case of an approaching hurricane or storm.

Preparing for a scheduled drill

While outdoor crisis drills are important for crisis preparedness, proper safety measures during these drills should not be overlooked. For instance, your employees may be at risk of UV exposure during long outdoor drills, which can cause heat stroke, sunburn, and photokeratitis. It’s essential to highlight sun protection as a crucial part of your employees’ disaster preparedness kits, including sunscreen, a sun hat that protects skin from UV rays, and polarized sunglasses that help reduce glare. These lenses have a special coating that enhances color contrast and visual acuity, allowing your employees to navigate to safety more comfortably and efficiently during the day. A collapsible water bottle that can fit an emergency kit is also crucial to help employees stay hydrated during both these drills and an actual crisis.

For drills scheduled during cold or rainy weather, bringing raincoats and thermal shock blankets can help prevent hypothermia. Boots or waterproof shoes can also help provide thermal insulation and warmth during cold weather drills.

It’s also important to schedule a meeting with your employees before you start your training drills. During this meeting, thoroughly discuss your evacuation plan, including exit points that will be used to ensure a smooth evacuation during the actual day. You can also discuss the designated areas where employees will stay outdoors and how they’ll be organized. Don’t forget to discuss the schedule, duration, and things to prepare to simulate actual evacuation circumstances, including emergency kits. Careful planning is a cornerstone of successful crisis training, so make sure to cover all your bases.

You can also seek guidance from experts who can help craft an outdoor crisis training or exercise program. A mock disaster exercise will be more effective with proper guidance from people with experience in training organizations to achieve optimal preparedness for crisis situations. Our services include designing crisis simulation exercises to help employees prepare for emergencies. Tapping our preparedness professionals can help elevate your company’s disaster preparedness with practical drills to heighten awareness and risk perception during a crisis. 

Assessing the aftermath

After conducting outdoor crisis training, you can gather your employees and discuss what worked and what didn’t. During the post-crisis drill meeting, you can try doing a SWOT analysis where you and your employees can assess the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of your outdoor crisis training to improve exercises and crisis simulations in the future. This can provide avenues for your organization to enhance disaster readiness and look at opportunities for strengthening effective strategies that helped make the training successful. Through assessment, you can further improve your team’s capacity to stay ready in times of crisis.

Afterward, you can draft a business plan based on assessments, which includes preparedness and recovery strategies in the case of an emergency situation. One disaster recovery strategy you can employ is having multiple data backups stored in different locations to guarantee data protection during a crisis. Failing to do so can destroy valuable client data, which could result in consequences such as a class-action lawsuit, as seen in the case of cloud computing company OVHcloud’s data center catching fire. Another strategy is to determine possible natural hazards and risks to your company so you can draft specific and effective proactive evacuation guidelines in case of emergencies.

Outdoor crisis training is essential to preparing employees for possible disasters that can disrupt normal operations. Through careful planning and assessment, you can enhance strategies to help your organization stay composed during emergencies. If you’re looking for practical crisis simulation exercises for your training, check out our services on the PreparedEx website. 

Dani Andrews is a business consultant and blogger. She dedicates her time in learning about the latest business trends and strategies. On her free time, she enjoys reading about the innovations in this space. 

Exclusively for PREPAREDEX