How to Enhance Egress Safety in Your Building
Although we may not think of it on a day-to-day basis, being prepared for an emergency egress is critical to the health and safety of all occupants who may enter your building. When emergency strikes there may be little time to ensure all occupants exit the building safely, so having the right tools in place before hand, can have the potential to save lives, and limit injuries.
Taking the time to enhance egress safety is an important step to enhancing the overall safety of your building and cannot be overlooked.
Provide Clear Wayfinding
In cases where the emergency egress pathway is difficult to see, occupants are more likely to retrace their steps back to the way they entered the building, potentially ignoring closer exits and creating a bottleneck, slowing egress speeds.
Ensuring the direction to and location of the all the exits within the building are clearly marked is a crucial step in enhancing egress safety. The use of wayfinding signage and other directional cues make it easy for occupants to easily find the nearest exit pathway and quickly make their way to the final exit discharge. Additionally, clearly marking the final exit is crucial to egress safety.
Enhance Visibility
The wayfinding signs and cues you install in your building don’t mean much if they can’t be seen! In emergency conditions the building may lose power, leaving occupants in the dark, in a building they may not be familiar with. Luminous egress path markings are readily visible in all lighting conditions, allowing occupants to spot and move towards the emergency exits nearest to them, even in the dark!
Luminous egress path markings do not rely on batteries or complicated wiring. After gaining a charge from a surrounding light source, photoluminescent exit signs and other luminous egress path markings automatically provide a bright glow the second the building loses power, and stay well-lit for hours to support a safe egress, ensuring the exit pathways in your building are not only well marked, but are easy to follow.
Keeping the Exit Pathway Clear
When storage space is sparse it can be tempting to use the building’s hallways to store equipment or other items, either temporarily or permanently. Avoiding this clutter, however, and ensuring the exit pathways in your building remain clear is crucial to egress safety. An exit pathway that is clear and free of debris allows for an eased flow of foot traffic, removing any bottlenecks, and helping to ensure all patrons can safely make it to the exit discharge in a timely manner.
If there are any obstructions that cannot be removed from the exit pathway, however, they must be marked with a luminous egress path marking to ensure the obstacle is easily seen under all lighting conditions, to support the flow of foot traffic while avoiding any potential injuries.
Have a Clear Evacuation Plan
Having a clear evacuation plan in place and communicating that plan to staff is an important aspect of enhancing egress safety. Ensuring staff members are well aware of the building’s evacuation plan will help them spring into action in emergency situations, helping to direct occupants to the nearest exits and ensuring a safe, timely egress.
When emergency strikes, make sure you are prepared, by taking the necessary precautions to enhance the egress safety in your building! For all your wayfinding and emergency egress needs, you can rely on Ecoglo®to bring you the visibly better solution!
Ecoglo® provides a full range of luminous egress path markings so you can create a totally custom, code compliant, system of emergency lighting for any building. From photoluminescent exit signs to non-slip step-edge nosings, Ecoglo® brings you the visibly better solution in luminous egress path markings.