Emergency plan builder
An emergency plan is only worth the drill behind it. Work through each scenario here, print the plan, and run it — the gaps show up in the first drill, never on the page.
Work through each scenario, print the sheet, and post it where staff can reach it without unlocking anything.
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Fire and evacuation
Shelter and lockdown
Reunification
The go-bag
Infants change every calculation
An adult can carry two infants, not six. If your infant room is at ratio and the alarm goes, the arithmetic of getting everyone out is the plan — evacuation cribs, cots on wheels, or a named second adult who comes from another room.
Write down who that person is and what happens if they are the one on a break. A plan that assumes full staffing is a plan for the easiest possible emergency.
Licensing requirement
Drill it, log it, time it
Most states require documented drills at a set frequency. Record the date, the scenario, how long the evacuation took and what went wrong. The log is the compliance item; the timing is what actually improves.
The attendance sheet leaves with you
Every plan has the same single point of failure: knowing who was in the building. Name the person who takes the current attendance sheet and the emergency contact file, and name their backup, because that person will be on holiday the day it matters.
Keep the file physically printable and current. A cloud system is excellent right up to the moment the building loses power and the phone is inside it.
Reunification is the hard part
Getting out is rehearsed. Handing children back to the right adults, off-site, with no power and a car park full of frightened parents, is not — and it is where plans fail.
Agree the relocation address in writing with whoever owns it. Decide now how you verify identity when nobody has ID and everyone is upset, and print the release log so someone signs for every child.
What is in the bag
Medications and action plans first: an emergency does not pause an allergy. Then the attendance file, the first aid kit, water, nappies, wipes and a change of clothes for the ages you serve.
Add the boring items that make an hour outside survivable — a torch, a radio, a blanket, and something quiet for children to hold. Check the bag on the same schedule as the alarms so nothing in it expires.
Sources
- Child Care Licensing — Childcare.govfetched 2026-09-04
- National Database of Child Care Licensing Regulations (HHS/ACF)fetched 2026-09-04