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Wernhil conducts evacuation drill

Wernhil conducts evacuation drill

Wernhil Park Shopping Centre Management conducted the first ever planned mandatory emergency evacuation drill earlier this week at the mall.
Close to 1.2 million public consumers, business tenants and employees were involved the civil protection and training exercise.
The evacuation drill was done within ten minutes of the required time emergency drill, in conjunction with all relevant Emergency and Disaster Risk Management Services from the City of Windhoek, City Police and Nampol.
Wernhil Park, is one of the highest foot traffic buildings in the country and this initiative was undertaken to further improve on providing the public, tenants and employees a safe a secure environment at all times.
Helen Bosshart Property Manager at Wernhil Shopping Centre said, “By implementing this mandatory evacuation drill, Wernhil Park will ensure the safety of all in the mall in case of any potential future emergency”.
Bosshart said, “The drill allowed us to test all alarm and evacuation systems and ensure they are fully functional. We tested the reaction and response times of external emergency services such as Fire Brigade, Ambulance services City Police.”
“It created an opportunities for comprehensive emergency response training for supervisory staff like the persons delegated with specific duties to be carried out during an emergency such as Fire Marshalls, First Aiders and that they can respond on time and in accordance with the emergency and evacuation procedures and assess the ongoing effectiveness of our emergency procedures,” she added.
The planned evacuation drill will in future greatly reduce risk and ensure more composure and less panic during a real life emergency situation and will allow the centre as a whole to become more familiar with the evacuation procedures, which can ultimately lead to lives being saved and unnecessary injuries being avoided.
Meanwhile, though Wernhil Park aimed to cause minimal disruption to both retailers as well as shoppers during the entire emergency drill procedure there were a few consumers who were a bit confused with what was happening and became a bit annoyed at the operation as the whole building was on lock down and could not carry out their activities.
“Wernhil and all staff apologise for any inconvenience that was caused to the public however wish to stress the importance of such a drill to ensure the highest level of public safety that should be maintained at all times,” Bosshart said.

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