Emergency plan rules, state by state

Two questions, then exactly what your state requires — with the rule that says so. Print it for the binder.

Who are you?

Two questions, then the rules. Nothing is saved and nothing is sent anywhere — this reads a body of research that already lives in your browser.

Healthcare — inpatient

Healthcare — outpatient

Residential care

Residential

Commercial & industrial

Education & childcare

Pick a state to see what applies. There is no national default worth showing you — Illinois requires residents to physically evacuate during a drill and California forbids compelling anyone to take part, so any single answer here would be wrong somewhere.

Why this can’t just be one answer

Three requirements contradict outright between states. Illinois requires drills to involve the actual evacuation of residents; California expressly does not require it and forbids compelling any resident to take part; Arizona includes residents unless their medical record documents that evacuating would harm them. Montana permits a drill to be announced; Pennsylvania, Virginia and Colorado require drills to be unannounced. Florida measures emergency power as 81 °F for 96 hours, California as 96 hours flat, and Colorado attaches it to individual residents who rely on powered medical equipment.

There is no national default for any of those that isn’t wrong somewhere. So this asks which state you’re in before it tells you anything.

What doesn’t change anywhere

The federal layer doesn’t vary by state, but it is narrower than it is usually described. OSHA 29 CFR §1910.38 is not a standing duty on every employer — by its own applicability paragraph it governs an emergency action plan whenever another OSHA standard requires the employer to have one. Where a trigger applies, §1910.38 then settles the contents: how an emergency gets reported, evacuation and exit-route assignments, who stays to shut down critical operations, how you account for everyone afterwards, rescue and medical duties, and naming who to ask about the plan.

For a licensed care facility this rarely decides anything on its own. The obligations that actually bite come from the state licence, from the adopted fire code, and — for a Medicare- or Medicaid-certified provider — from the CMS emergency preparedness rule, whose applicability follows the certified provider type rather than the building. Which is the whole reason this asks what you are licensed as before it tells you anything.

Where a rule couldn’t be verified

It says so, on screen, with the agency to ask and what to open. It does not fill the gap with a figure from somewhere else: an unconfirmed drill frequency prints as unconfirmed, not as a national default, because a number you can’t cite is worse than no number at a survey. Nothing here is invented, and nothing industry practice suggests is dressed up with a code citation it doesn’t have.

Look up a single state

Every state we have researched in enough depth has its own page — the license names it uses, its drill rule, what it does or does not require you to file, its prescribed forms, and how long it makes you keep the records. States still being worked stay in the tool above rather than getting a page with nothing specific on it.

Then what?

Knowing the rule and having the document are two different jobs. The Emergency Plan Builder writes the plan itself — same research behind it, so the two can never disagree — and the Compliance Calendar puts the drills and inspections on dates so they actually happen.