What to Add to a Response Plan for an Active Shooter

An active shooter situation is extremely scary and stressful. You definitely don’t want to be in this type of situation without any idea of what to do. This is where an active shooter plan comes into play. You want to make sure you’re ready for this situation and it’s better to have the plan and not need it than to need it and not have it! Keep reading to see some of the things that should be included in the plan.

How to Alert Outside Agencies

One of the very first things you want to do is alert outside agencies. You want to include how to do this in your plan so people aren’t trying to do it and not being able to get through. Instead of just having 1 or 2 agencies to contact, you want to get in touch with as many as you can. This includes police, other hospitals and the fire department.

How to Report

You’ll also want to figure out how you want the situation to be reported to people inside the building. The last thing you want is people running into the shooter because they didn’t know what was going on. However, you decide to get the news out, you want to ensure that everyone stays as calm as possible and finds somewhere to hide where they won’t easily be seen. It’s extremely important that everyone in this situation knows what’s going on so they don’t end up losing their lives.

Lockdown Procedures

The plan should also have the lockdown procedures. Since you might not know how many shooters there are or how many weapons they have, you want to lockdown the building as soon as you can. You don’t want people running for the exits because that can make them easy targets and there could end up being a lot more injuries and fatalities. Have a clear lockdown plan so there isn’t anyone who doesn’t know what’s going on.

Evacuation Plan

Another extremely important aspect of this kind of plan is to figure out an evacuation plan. Once the cops say you can start evacuating, you want to make sure you have a plan in place. If you just announce it, the shooter might hear you and people might get injured in all the chaos. The plan will vary from place to place, but some ways you can do it is by floor or by locations of the building.

Clear Steps to Take

Finally, you want to have a clear list of the exact steps that need to be taken. This can really help reduce the amount of people injured and make everything run a lot smoother. It’s better to be prepared instead of having a bunch of people doing whatever they want.

By ensuring these things are addressed, you should be able to do your best in this type of situation. Since active shooters are so unpredictable, you never know what might happen. Just be ready to run and hide if the situation arises.

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