The emergency exit needs to remain useful on the day nobody expects an emergency.

Safety measures are used on days that look exactly like every other day. The exit has to be clear on the ordinary Tuesday when nothing is going to happen, because there is no warning that separates that Tuesday from the one where it matters. Since almost every day is the first kind, things get stacked in front of it and nobody is being careless in any particular moment. The failure accumulates from a thousand reasonable decisions.

Walk the route out of wherever you spend your days and see whether it is genuinely clear. Moving one box now is easier than the alternative, and it takes about a minute.