OSHA doesn't require workplace tornado drills - but it strongly recommends them. During a tornado warning at work, the difference between a well-prepared workplace and an unprepared one can be dozens of lives. Here's what employers and employees should each do.
Every workplace should have identified tornado shelter locations. Ideal criteria:
Establish protocols for:
Best practice: quarterly tornado drills, with additional drills before peak season (April-June). Time each drill and review with staff.
OSHA requires most employers to have an Emergency Action Plan (EAP). Include tornado response with:
Before a warning fires. Ask on your first day. Don't wait for the emergency.
Do not ignore tornado warnings because you're at work. Move to shelter immediately, not "after you finish this email."
Help colleagues with mobility limitations reach shelter. Check bathrooms, meeting rooms, and common areas for people who may not have heard the warning.
Do not leave shelter early. Multi-tornado outbreaks are common - additional warnings may follow.
Large open production floors are especially dangerous during tornadoes. Interior offices, break rooms, and bathrooms are the safest shelter options.
Consider retrofitting a reinforced tornado shelter in the middle of the facility if the workforce is large.
Chain stores (Walmart, Target, grocery stores) typically have designated employee-only shelter locations - often in bathrooms or interior break rooms. Customers may need to shelter in the same areas.
Retail managers should announce shelter locations over the PA when warnings fire.
High-rise office buildings: move to the lowest possible interior floor. Do not use elevators during warnings. Consider stairwells as shelter if they're windowless.
Hospitals cannot fully evacuate. Move mobile patients to interior corridors on lower floors. Non-mobile patients: shift beds away from windows, close curtains and doors. Every hospital should have well-rehearsed tornado protocols.
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Extremely vulnerable. Cease outdoor work at first warning. Move to permanent buildings (site trailers do not qualify as safe shelter).
Employers have a general duty to provide safe workplaces (OSHA). Failure to have reasonable tornado protocols can result in liability if employees are killed or injured during warnings.
Some states have specific requirements for tornado planning in schools, hospitals, and childcare facilities.
Commercial insurance should cover tornado damage to property and business interruption. Review your policy annually for: