Emergency plan rules in Colorado
One licence type researched, regulated by Colorado Dept. of Public Health & Environment — Health Facilities and EMS Division. Every requirement below carries the rule that imposes it.
Assisted living / residential care
Licensed in Colorado as Assisted Living Residence, by Colorado Dept. of Public Health & Environment — Health Facilities and EMS Division.
6 CCR 1011-1 Chapter 7, Section 10 (emergency preparedness for assisted living residences)
Staff must be trained in emergency procedures, and at least one UNANNOUNCED drill is conducted annually.
That matches the most common figure across the states we have confirmed.
Colorado sets a stocking level rather than a duration of outage: a 72-hour supply of food, water and essential medications must be maintained on site.
6 CCR 1011-1 Chapter 7 Section 10Colorado requires backup power sources for residents who rely on electrically powered medical equipment. This is a different trigger from Florida's or California's facility-wide generator mandates — the obligation follows the individual resident, so admitting one oxygen-concentrator or ventilator-dependent resident creates it, and the plan has to track which residents carry it.
6 CCR 1011-1 Chapter 7 Section 10- Colorado is a third model for emergency power. Florida sets a temperature and an hour count for the whole building; California AB 2511 sets 96 hours for the whole building; Colorado attaches the duty to individual residents' equipment. A multi-state operator needs all three tests, and only Colorado's can change when a single resident moves in.
Reviewed 2026-07-30
What this page is
The requirements Colorado places on a facility emergency preparedness plan, taken from the state’s own rules rather than a national template. Where we have confirmed something against primary text it is stated plainly; where we have not, it says so and names what to check. Nothing here is inferred from what other states do.
The part that is the same everywhere
The federal floor does not vary by state. OSHA 29 CFR §1910.38 binds any employer: reporting an emergency, evacuation and exit-route assignments, critical-operations shutdown, accounting for everyone afterwards, rescue and medical duties, and naming who to ask about the plan. That layer, plus the exit-route, alarm and first-aid rules and the fire code’s plan structure, is covered in the main crash course rather than repeated on all fifty state pages.
Write the plan
The Emergency Plan Builder produces the document itself and is driven by this same research, so the two cannot disagree about what Colorado requires. The Compliance Calendar puts the drills and inspections on dates.