The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) has published the Emergency Evacuation Planning Guide for People with Disabilities for developing plans to protect disabled individuals during emergencies. This free guide can be downloaded as a Microsoft Word® or Adobe Acrobat® PDF document at www.nfpa.org.

The guide brings various planning components for the disabled community into one comprehensive evacuation planning strategy. It is written for those in building management who are involved in life safety decisions. Sections explore the egress requirements of individuals with one or more mobility, visual, hearing, speech or cognitive impairment.

Chapter 3, “Building an Evacuation Plan for a Person with a Visual Impairment” highlights the capability of a device that uses directional sound to lead people to a safe exit.

Directional sound is an audible signal that leads people to safety in a way that conventional alarms cannot, by communicating the location of exits using broadband noise. The varying tones and intensities coming from directional sound devices offer easy-to-discern cues for finding the way out. As soon as people hear the devices, they intuitively follow them to get out quickly.

The ExitPoint™ directional sounder from System Sensor is an advanced egress device that can accelerate evacuation times by as much as 75%. The ExitPoint device acts as an audible exit sign, directing people to the nearest safe exit using broadband sound. It can also use a recorded voice message to provide verbal instructions in 15 field-selectable language choices. It is listed to UL 464, FM, MEA and CSFM. The technology of exit-marking audible notification is referenced in NFPA 72, National Fire Alarm Code, 2007 Edition.

The guide’s “Personal Emergency Evacuation Planning Checklist” prompts emergency planners to consider a full range of appropriate devices and notification actions. References and links are provided for applicable life safety codes and studies.

This NFPA guide is based on input from the disability community. The NFPA is a nonprofit organization that serves the fire, electrical and life-safety field with code and standard writing, research, training and education. The guide will be updated annually, or when new ideas, concepts, and technologies become available.

Tags: NFPA, online, Speakers and Strobes

Posted in Audible/Visible Notification, Guidelines, NFPA, Residential, Winter 2007

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