Emergency planning; creation of external emergency plans

External emergency planning is part of the regulations for preventing serious accidents that could be caused by certain industrial activities and for limiting the consequences of accidents for human health and the environment. It supplements the federal regulations on internal accident prevention and limiting the consequences for the operators of certain plants and facilities with measures outside the plant in the event of an accident.

As part of preventive disaster control, the district administrative authorities must draw up, update and test alarm and emergency plans for certain hazardous incidents as defined by the Hazardous Incident Ordinance (12th BImSchV) on the basis of corresponding operator information .

External emergency plans are drawn up in order to

1. Contain and control incidents so that the consequences are kept to a minimum and damage to people, natural resources and property can be limited;
2. initiate measures to protect people and natural resources from the consequences of major accidents;
3. to pass on necessary information to the public and the authorities or departments concerned in the area in question;
4. initiate clean-up operations and measures to restore natural resources after a major accident.

The external emergency plan must contain information on

1. Names or position of persons authorized to initiate emergency measures and to carry out and coordinate off-site measures;
2. arrangements for receiving early warnings and for raising the alarm and notifying the emergency services;
3. Arrangements for coordinating the resources required to implement the external emergency plan;
4. Arrangements to support remedial measures on the company premises;
5. Arrangements for off-site remedial actions, including response actions to major accident scenarios as described in the safety report and consideration of potential domino effects, including those affecting natural resources;
6. arrangements for informing the public and any neighboring establishments or premises not falling within the scope of Directive 2012/18/EU of the accident and of the correct behavior;
7. arrangements for informing the emergency services of other Member States of the European Communities in the event of a major accident with possible cross-border consequences.