What is an Evacuation Plan Diagram?

Evacuation Plan Diagrams are designed to face an unforeseen situation that threatens your employees, customers, or visitors. In the event of an emergency, the best way to react to it is to have an established procedure before it happens. Planning can help reduce the impact.

A wide variety of emergencies both man-made and natural may require a workplace to be evacuated. These emergencies include - fires, explosions, floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, toxic material releases, radiological and biological accidents, civil disturbances, and workplace violence. Having an Emergency Evacuation Plan can prevent tragedy and may even save lives.

Evacuation Plan Symbols

In an Evacuation Plan Diagram, they are a variety of shapes that can be used. However, in the event of an emergency, the evacuation plan and facilities must have clear and easy to read signs to provide guidelines on how to evacuate safely.

Those emergency signs provide guidelines on how to evacuate the building, indicate the exit routes, give information for the location of the fire extinguisher, fire alarm, and first aid kit. Here is a list of the most important Emergency symbols/signs:

Attention Danger

Automated Heart Defibrillator

Break to Obtain Access

Doctor

Emergency Evacuation Point

Emergency Exit

Emergency Phone

Emergency Window

Escape Route

Exit Sign

Fire Extinguisher

Fire Hose Reel

First Aid

For a more comprehensive list, see our full Emergency shapes library.

Workplace Emergency

A workplace emergency can disrupt or shut down an operation or cause physical or environmental damage with no warning. Depending on your location and industry, you may encounter:floods, hurricanes or tornadoes, fires, toxic gas releases, chemical spills, radiological accidents, explosions, or civil disturbances.

Emergency Action Plan

Effective Emergency Management Plans and Evacuation Diagrams can:

Reduce the effects of an emergency.
Prevent personal injuries.
Protect against loss of lives.
Prevent property damage.
Minimize business interruptions.

The Evacuation Plan Diagrams must be displayed in conspicuous positions along the evacuation route of the facility, and orientated with the layout of the building.

In MyDraw you will find detailed and well-organized templates for Emergency Evacuation Plans. For more information click here.

Evacuation Plan Guidelines

To prepare the emergency guidelines it is important to determine the following:

Conditions under which an evacuation would be necessary.
Conditions under which it may be better to shelter-in-place.
A clear chain of command and designation of the person in your business authorized to order an evacuation or shutdown.
Specific evacuation procedures, including routes and exits.
Specific evacuation procedures for high-rise buildings.
Procedures for assisting visitors and employees to evacuate, particularly those with disabilities or who do not speak English.
Designation of what, if any, employees will remain after the evacuation alarm to shut down critical operations or perform other duties before evacuating.
A means of accounting for employees after an evacuation.
Special equipment for employees.
Appropriate respirators.

Evacuation routes and emergency exits meet the following conditions:

Marked and well lit.
Wide enough to accommodate the number of evacuating personnel.
Unobstructed and clear of debris at all times.
Unlikely to expose evacuating personnel to additional hazards.

MyDraw Software provides the vector tools you need and a wide selection of shapes library to design your emergency signs.

How to create an Emergency Evacuation Plan in MyDraw?

MyDraw includes a wide variety of templates to choose for your project requirements. Even if you are not a professional designer, you can edit the ready-made templates to adjust them for the specific assignment. You can also create your template with a few drag and drops.

How To Do It?

Open a “Blank Drawing” file document in MyDraw.
Make sure you have opened Library Gallery> Libraries> General and Clipart library. The General folder library includes the connectors, basic shapes, and arrows to build the frame of the Evacuation Plan. In the Clipart library, you will find the emergency signs and evacuation shapes.
Draw out the basic layout of the building (by floor level), including walls and doors.
Position the evacuation signs/shapes at or near means of egress, entrances to stairs, in elevator lobbies, and in any area where there would be a lot of habitats.
Mark the egress paths that are available from the starting point. Highlight exterior or stair enclosure doors with the word “Exit.”
Show the location of fire extinguishers, first aid kit, and manual fire alarm pull stations. Identify any outdoor gathering areas.
In the Ribbon, you have a selection of tools and style editors: connectors, paragraph alignment, text, and shape styles.
Navigate to the ribbon and from the Design Tab, you can apply a design theme to your Emergency Evacuation Plan.
To make modifications to your connectors you can right-click on the page and select Shapes Properites>Geometry and click “Ok” to apply the changes.
To add fill and stroke to your shape you can right-click on the shape and choose “Format Geometry”. To make changes to your typography you can select “Format Text Block”.
11. Once you are finished choose a file format to save your Emergency Evacuation Plan from File>Save or File>Export.

Emergency Evacuation Plans