Taking a closer look at integrating PA with emergency evacuation of industrial and commercial facilities
Whenever public address systems are integrated with warning systems such as fire alarms, it is critical to understand the very unique requirements of emergency alerting and evacuation. Successful integration can only be achieved after first acknowledging that the critical demands of warning and evacuation far outweigh the requirements of a typical PA system.
One of the biggest concerns centers on the selection and efficient positioning of PA speaker arrays. This can prove instrumental in the ability of a system to broadcast clearly audible messages, warnings and evacuation instructions to employees, students and the general public.
Whether messages are live or recorded, effective integration of PA systems enable a higher degree of accuracy in indicating the types of danger, the exact location of a hazardous situation and the delivery of specific evacuation instructions. Among the many examples of how integration of PA and warning systems can prove beneficial is the linking of video surveillance with public address in order to enable security personnel of a sports stadium, for instance, to convey more accurate and more detailed instructions for mass evacuations.
Of course, clear messaging is highly dependent on the sound clarity to goes hand in hand with amplifier performance and quality. Likewise, correct positioning of speakers has an obvious impact on sound clarity, especially for larger facilities. While smaller, more cramped spaces may be able to get by with conventional ceiling speakers, larger areas with much higher ceilings such as manufacturing plants and shopping malls may require special speaker arrays that not only direct sound downward but also deal with echoing that results from excess reverberation.
From speaker sensitivity and properly sized cabling, to the availability of an adequate power source to amplify voltage input, there are a myriad of factors to consider in designing a PA system that is successfully integrated with a facility's emergency warning requirements. And in many cases, effectively evaluating public address requirements as they relate to emergency warning and evacuation will call for the know-how of trained experts both in system integration and acoustics.
