Safety Committee Meeting Minutes for March 15, 2011

Safety Committee Meeting Minutes

March 15, 2011

Downtown

Attending: Kay Bauman, Denise Courts, Ric Rea, Phil Tolbert, Candace McDaniel
Absent: Patrick Williams

Agenda

• Review past meeting minutes
• New Outdoor Warning Guidelines
• Around the table

Discussion:

Recently, the Central Oklahoma Emergency Management Association published new guidelines for outdoor warning systems, formerly known as tornado sirens. The goal is to provide a more consistent message to Central Oklahoma residents to let them know what they should do when they hear a siren regardless of where they live in Central Oklahoma.

The guidelines are:

When a siren is sounded, people should take shelter immediately and seek more information. With more information, they can decide what further protective measures to take. When the sirens stop, it does not indicate the threat of a tornado has passed. Sirens may be activated more than once, as new or additional threats are indentified. Cities and counties will never sound an “all clear” signal.

This information can be found at the City of Oklahoma City website – www.okc.gov.

In preparation for severe weather season, a new Safety Powerpoint presentation will be available on the intranet outlining procedures for library staff in the event of severe weather during library hours of operation.

Additionally, IT is working to get a 4-Warn alert icon at every library location. This feature will automatically scroll a message across the computer screen alerting of any weather watches and/or warnings in the area. This message should prompt staff to seek more information and begin preparation for the possible need to take shelter.

Denise reported there have been no Worker’s Comp claims since December.

The Safety Committee currently has two vacant positions. We once again discussed possible candidates who will be contacted in the coming week.

The committee toured the Downtown library using the facility inspection checklist. Overall the facility was clean and in good repair. All required documentation was posted. We found five storage areas that had boxes and materials stacked too close the ceiling. OSHA regulations require at least 18” of clear space from the ceiling in order for fire sprinkler systems to work properly. Managers of the affected areas have been notified of the violation.

Meeting adjourned: 12:00pm Next meeting: May 10, 2011 – 10:00am

Location : TBD