Earthquakes can happen at any time and cause severe amounts of damage. You must prepare and know what to do in the event of an earthquake emergency, whether it occurs at home or work.
If your building has received damage from earthquakes previously, make sure to get the proper foundation repair. Los Angeles has many earthquakes each year. Not all businesses take the time to prepare their employees. Luckily, it doesn’t take a lot of effort to learn how to improve earthquake safety in the workplace.
Steps To Improve Workplace Safety
If you want to start improving workplace safety, you’ll need to follow all of these steps. You must go over these steps with your coworkers and employees.
- Come Up With A Disaster Plan
First, you’ll need to create a disaster plan for your business. If you’re in California, you can implement an earthquake brace bolt in your plan. These tools help lessen the amount of damage from earthquakes.
You’ll want everyone at the business to feel prepared.
Your plan should cover:
- Where it’s safe to hide from debris
- How to drop, cover, and hold to protect yourself
- Where the evacuation routes are
- The location of first aid kits and fire extinguishers
Your plan should be concise and easy for everyone to follow. Make sure that you cover where people with disabilities should go and what steps they should take. You should consider adding a seismic retrofit at this stage, which helps keep the building stable during earthquakes. With foundation building in disaster areas, this is essential.
- Remove Any Hazards
During an earthquake, several everyday items can become a potential hazard. You’ll want to make sure there’s nothing that could fall over. Check on your shelves, fridges, vending machines, and other large cabinets. These items need to be secure.
If there are unsecured, heavy objects in the building, you’ll want to remove them or bolt them to the floor. It’s best to be safe when considering how to improve earthquake safety in the workplace.
- Practice Finding Cover
You’ll also want everyone in the building to practice finding cover. The workers should know how to drop, cover, and hold on. Start by showing them where safe places are, which would be under desks or tables. Make sure every room has a safe place to find cover.
- Practice Drills
It would be best if you also started holding earthquake drills.
These are the steps to practice your own:
- Teach workers about the emergency alarm and use it to indicate the start of a drill
- Have everyone find cover and hold on
- Teach them to cover their heads
- Show everyone where to evacuate after the shaking ends
- Go through a roll call
- Go over the drill and let everyone know where they can improve
Make sure all of the employees know where to find the emergency kit. This kit should include water, non-perishable food, a battery radio, flashlights, and several first aid kits.
Final Thoughts
If you need help learning how to improve earthquake safety in the workplace, be sure to reach out to Seismic Safety at 626-791-2300. We have everything you need to keep you and your workers safe in the event of a natural disaster!