Emergencies can occur at any time and careful planning, with an emphasis on safety, can help the UO community respond. Emergency and continuity plans are vital to ensuring life safety, property preservation, and orderly recovery following disruptive events. Every member of the UO community shares responsibility for emergency preparedness. 

Emergency and Continuity

In addition to emergency planning, the university encourages colleges, divisions and individual departments to develop detailed continuity plans. UO organizes, coordinates, and directs available resources toward an effective response to, and recovery from emergencies under the Emergency Management and Continuity program. The effectiveness of this effort is dependent on the development of UO’s Emergency Operations Plan (EOP) and individual department continuity plans. The EOP is an all-hazards plan, designed to provide an emergency response outline for any incident that will impact campus.

Unit Emergency Planning

Unit heads are responsible for ensuring that their units have emergency plans in place, and that all persons – including faculty, staff and students – are familiar with those plans. Unit heads are also responsible for assigning emergency preparedness and response duties to appropriate staff members. 

Plan development should not be the sole responsibility of a unit employee.  A collaborative, team approach to plan development typically leads to the strongest outcomes.

Safety and Risk Services strongly encourages all academic and administrative units to develop emergency and continuity plans and has developed resources that can assist in preparing:

• Department Emergency Plan Template
• Oregon Ready Business Continuity tool
• Emergency Procedures
• Safety Sheets, Maps, and Preparedness Videos
• Emergency and Personal Safety Trainings 

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Emergency Procedures

Principal investigators and supervisors are responsible for ensuring that all lab staff are trained on emergency procedures for their lab.

Emergencies can include:

• Fire
• Loss of electricity, heat, air conditioning, water or other essential utilities.
• Failure of mechanical equipment such as HVAC systems and emergency generators.
• Flooding, tornadoes, earthquakes, or other natural disasters.
• Nearby chemical releases of hazardous materials to the environment (e.g. from the lab down the hall or a ruptured tank car one-half mile away).
• Shelter in place.

The Emergency Procedures page provides a quick reference guide for general safety procedures including for fire, earthquake, and shelter in place. Information about emergency and non-emergency evacuation procedures can be found on the Evacuations webpage. 

Lab specific emergency procedures for lab shutdown, power outage, and chemical spills are on the Lab Incident Response page. 

Fire Safety

Fire safe work practices are a shared responsibility of lab administrators and supervisors, occupants, and principal investigators. Lab staff should be trained on locations of building fire alarm pull stations, fire extinguisher (and fire blanket, if available) locations, and evacuation routes from the lab. 

Report all fires to UOPD, including those that have been extinguished. The Fire Safety webpage provides more information on general fire emergency procedures. 

Lab staff must take the UO Fire Prevention in Labs training, a one-time online course. This course is available on MyTrack, LinkedIn Learning, and the EHS Community Canvas site.

Chemical Spill Procedures

The type of response to a spill will depend on the quantity of the chemical spilled, the severity of the hazards associated with the chemical, and the location of the spill. Many chemical spills can be safely cleaned up by laboratory staff without the help of EHS. Only attempt to clean up spills if you are trained and have the proper spill cleanup materials available. 

Responses for emergency, major, and minor spills are outlined on the Lab Incident Response page. 

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Planning for Emergency Shutdowns in Laboratories

Each laboratory or research facility should develop a master emergency response plan that incorporates scenarios where facilities need to be abruptly shutdown but where there is no immediate evacuation order. Employees must be trained on the contents of the plan and how to respond. Labs and facilities should conduct periodic emergency drills to familiarize staff with emergency protocols. 

Labs should develop emergency plans for their equipment, hazardous materials, research animals, etc. as applicable. Emergency phone numbers for UOPD, the EHS duty phone, and the PI/director of the lab space should be posted in the lab in addition to exterior door signage. Staff must know where these numbers are located and who to contact for different types of emergencies. 

EHS has a set of steps to guide the safe shutdown of labs in emergency situations where there is not an immediate evacuation order. These and other steps, based on the requirements of the facility, should be included in the emergency response plan of each unit or facility. 

Below are some suggestions for lab facility emergency planning: 

Research Animals

• Lab personnel should be familiar with the emergency procedures developed by the UO animal facilities.
• Post animal facility emergency contact numbers in animal use areas. 

Equipment

• Plug essential equipment into back-up power (usually orange or red outlets) if available.
• Create a list of equipment to turn off in a shutdown, along with any special procedures for turning off.
• Turn off non-essential electrical devices.
• Turn off lasers and radio frequency generators following lab shutdown procedures.
• Leave refrigerators and freezers on and make sure the doors are closed. 

Hazardous Materials

• Cap any bottles of chemicals.
• Close fume hood sashes.
• Turn off all gas cylinders at the tank valves. If a low flow of an inert gas is being used to "blanket" a reactive compound or mixture, such as in a glove box, then the lab worker may want to leave the flow of gas on. This should be part of a pre-approved, written, posted standard operating procedure for this material or process.
• Check all cryogenic vacuum traps (Nitrogen, Carbon dioxide, and solvent). The evaporation of trapped materials may cause dangerous conditions.
• Check all containers of cryogenic liquids to ensure that they are vented to prevent the buildup of internal pressure.
• Check all pressure, temperature, air, or moisture sensitive materials and equipment. This includes vacuum work, distillations, glove boxes used for airless/moistureless reactions, and all reactions in progress. Terminate all reactions that are in progress, based on the known scope of the emergency.

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Injury, Incident, Illness, and Near Miss Reporting

It is the responsibility of the Principal Investigator and laboratory supervisor to ensure all injuries are reported to Safety and Risk Services.

All accidents and injuries, no matter how minor, are required to be reported to university officials through the injury/illness reporting system. The supervisor of an injured employee, the department head, or a designated individual within the department must complete all sections of the Workplace Injury Form within 24 hours after the injury is first reported. 

Medical Consultations

When a chemical exposure occurs, medical consultations and medical examinations will be made available to laboratory workers who work with hazardous chemicals as required. All work related medical examinations and consultations will be performed by or under the direct supervision of a licensed physician and will be provided at no cost to the employee without loss of pay, through Cascade Health Solutions or the nearest emergency clinic.

The opportunity to receive medical attention, including any follow up examinations, will be provided to employees who work with hazardous chemicals under the following circumstances:

• Whenever an employee develops signs or symptoms associated with a hazardous chemical to which the employee may have been exposed in the laboratory.
• Where airborne exposure monitoring reveals an exposure level routinely above the action level (or in the absence of an action level, the Permissible Exposure Limit) for an OSHA regulated substance for which there are exposure monitoring and medical surveillance requirements. Action level means the airborne concentration of a specific chemical, identified by OSHA, and calculated as an 8-hour time weighted average (TWA).
• Whenever an event such as a spill, leak, explosion, or other chemical release occurs there is the chance of a hazardous exposure. The affected employee shall be provided an opportunity for a medical consultation. The consultation shall be for the purpose of determining the need for a medical examination.

Information Provided to the Physician

The physician shall be provided with the following information:

• The identity of the hazardous chemical(s) to which the employee may have been exposed. Such information can be found in the Safety Data Sheet (SDS) for the chemical(s).
• A description of the conditions under which the exposure occurred including quantitative exposure data, if available.
• A description of the signs and symptoms of exposure that the employee is experiencing, if any.

The Physician’s Written Opinion

The physician’s written opinion for the consultation or examination shall include:

• The results of the medical examination and any associated tests.
• Any medical condition that may be revealed in the course of the examination, which may place the employee at increased risk as a result of exposure to a hazardous workplace.
• A statement that the employee has been informed by the physician of the results of the consultation or medical examination and any medical condition that may require further examination or treatment.
• The written opinion shall not reveal specific findings of diagnoses unrelated to the occupational exposure.

All records of medical consultations, examinations, tests, or written opinions shall be maintained within Safety & Risk Services in accordance with 29 CFR 1910.1020 - Access to employee exposure and medical records. Exposure monitoring records of contamination levels in laboratories will be maintained at the SRS office.