The New York City Fire Department is working with Broadway theatres to develop better emergency procedure standards. This movement was sparked, no pun intended, by the May 1st car bomb attempt in Times Square. The new procedures would cover fire- and non-fire-related emergencies including biological, chemical, or nuclear attack.
With the World Choir Games coming to Cincinnati in 2013 and the renovations to Music Hall and the Taft Theatre, it would be a smart move for the City of Cincinnati to work with all organizations and companies, not just arts ones, to create strong emergency procedures. After the plans are created, individual companies would provide sufficient emergency training for all employees. The layout of Music Hall and the Taft are being altered, meaning the evacuation plans and other emergency procedure plans will already need to be reevaluated. The World Choir Games will bring a huge influx of people from all around the world to the city. It would be terrible press if some disaster occurred and Cincinnatians weren’t able to enact their emergency plans because they didn’t know them.
According to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, safety is the second most fundamental aspect of life to achieve. Every person in the world needs and wants to feel safe. A city that cannot provide safety for its citizens is a very troubled city indeed. Preparing for a large increase in traffic through the infrastructure of this city by examining and changing, if necessary, the current emergencies procedures will reassure the citizens of Cincinnati and its visitors, allowing them to feel safe within this city. Citizens who feel safe within a community are more likely to invest in their community.
The goal of this policy change is to provide Cincinnatians and visitors to Cincinnati with safety in the event of an emergency situation. I believe Cincinnatians would be on board with public safety. This policy not only applies to arts organizations, but any establishment within the community where people spend time. This policy would cost some time and money in the sense that the training sessions may cost employers some money outside of regular wages. However, these upfront costs are significantly smaller than the costs of lost tourism to Cincinnati if some disaster was to happen and the City couldn’t implement the appropriate course of action.
The action step I’d like the City of Cincinnati to take is for the City Council Committees for Public Safety, and Quality of Life, and the subcommittee of Major Transportation and Infrastructure Projects and the Cincinnati Fire Department to work closely with business owners, theatrical union members, and other safety officials to create stronger emergency procedure policies and training standards for employees. After the procedures and standards have been created, businesses, organizations, and the appropriate unions will hold training sessions to bring employees up to date on the procedures. Within the city policy would be a stipulation that emergency training must be conducted every six months to keep employees current and knowledgeable.
I want Cincinnati to be a city where children can play in the front yard, where neighbors don’t have to be strangers. I want visitors coming to this fair city to know to feel safe, and to enjoy themselves. I don’t want them to be afraid to travel downtown to see a show at the newly renovated Music Hall because they heard about the past. In a world full of scary things like bio-chemical warfare and the possibility of terrorist attacks, we need to take any and all steps to secure ourselves and the guests to our city. With these new emergency procedures we can look to a brighter, safer future.
Here’s the link to the New York Times article that inspired my presentation topic: http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/12/new-emergency-standards-are-recommended-for-broadway/?src=twt&twt=nytimesarts
--Carolyne Hall
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