How Well Do Your Know Your Site?

Whether your site is some construction project, an industrial or retail complex or condo tower if you are a professional security officer – or whether it is your home, office, or other place of business how well do you know the layout? In an emergency could you get around it in the dark – without the aid of a flashlight?



You should be able to so you could navigate through the building or area quickly and safely if some emergency did happen and you were caught without a flashlight – or it was too dangerous to let others who had invaded your property know where are.

You should practice this on a regular basis of some sort, particularly if you live or work in an area which has a history of break ins, building invasions, or other problems like power failures etc.



You should know where all the doors lead to and where all the places of refuge can be found. If you frequently work outside in the late night or early morning hours you should know where all the routes inside your site or property lead to as well as what roads or trails lead up to the perimeter of your site or property. You should know where they come from as well as who normally uses these routes – and where they would take you if you had to retreat from the area for some reason. 




And you also want to keep in mind whether roads or trails, or access points  converging on your position from two or more different directions would leave you vulnerable to attack from two directions. Then keep an eye of these routes periodically while you are working – in an alert – not paranoid fashion.



This type of awareness about your property or site should become a habit, particularly for security people stationed in outside area but often it does not All too often you can walk or drive right up behind them from a direction they were not monitoring and catch them completely off guard – particularly guards sitting in their own vehicles listening to the radio or I pods etc.



No, problems do not happen often on most sites, but it takes only one when you are not alert to ruin your day (or night).