June 8, 2012
Canvassing the campus for emergency egress
A team of students began canvassing the campus this week to assist the Division of Public Safety with emergency egress plans for our buildings. New fire code rules require us to provide emergency egress plans for all building occupants on campus. For now we will focus on the Manhattan buildings.
The student group working out of the College of Architecture, Planning and Design has designed a standard mapping system that will be posted in hallways and classrooms in buildings around the campus. Besides emergency egress, the maps will identify the location of Alertus beacons, areas of rescue assistance, fire extinguishers, hose connections, fire alarms and pull stations, fire panels and other fire emergency equipment.
This is all part of a larger plan to keep our building occupants informed of what to do in case of an emergency. One major risk is fire and how to evacuate from a building in an emergency. In the future, we will be testing these procedures. Currently the department of environmental health and safety tests fire alarms, emergency lights, smoke detectors and sprinkler systems on a regular basis. The other alert systems such as the Alertus beacons and tornado sirens are also tested on a regular basis.
A draft of the new emergency evacuation policy has been circulated to various key personnel for evaluation and comments this past year. It will be submitted to the Faculty Senate, Classified Senate and Student Senate prior to the beginning of the fall semester. Following their review and approvals, it will replace the current plan which is available on the Web at: http://www.k-state.edu/safety/safety/fire/codes/evacuation.html
If you would like to see the most current draft of the policy, contact Stephen Broccolo in the Division of Public Safety at 785-532-5856 or safety@k-state.edu.