In its role
as a major provider of designing, conducting, and evaluating
homeland security exercises for federal, state, and
local government clients, ICF International consistently
sees the need for disparate organizations to work together
to efficiently manage an emergency. There have been
numerous cases of an actual emergency or a simulated
exercise where emergency responders have not worked
effectively and efficiently together in a multi-jurisdictional
response. The issues that arise in a multi-jurisdictional
response range from "who’s in charge of
what," to "who reports to whom," "who
has the authority to do what," and so on.
Some emergencies, such as a vehicle accident on an
interstate highway, require that police, fire, and
emergency medical services from different jurisdictions
work together effectively and efficiently. Thus, the
management of an emergency gets much more complicated
when additional levels of government engage. Everyone
has authority for something, but how do these disparate
organizations work together to efficiently manage an
emergency? |
This article was published
in the Winter
2005 issue
of Perspectives.
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of Use policy regarding acceptable
use of content on the ICF International Web
site. |
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Two years ago President George W. Bush issued Homeland Security
Presidential Directive (HSPD) number 5, "Management
of Domestic Incidents," which has spawned a new U.S.
national effort designed to promote integrated homeland security
efforts that will enhance the efforts of emergency responders
and services to incident victims. The initiatives emanating
from HSPD-5 have components that differ from past federal
efforts.
 ICF International’s analysis of this new single framework
for response concludes that these initiatives are best understood
when viewed as a program that includes three instructional
elements:
The Guidebook
The guidebook is the National Response
Plan (NRP), which
updates the nation’s all-hazards approach to response.
The NRP focuses on:
- coordination of jurisdictions and disciplines
- emphasizes
the cycles of awareness, prevention, preparedness,
response, and recovery
- promotes maximizing resources
- prioritizes
the improvement of incident management communications
and mutual aid agreements
The Approach
The approach is based on the Incident
Command System (ICS),
long favored by the firefighting community and now adopted
as the national standard for organizing response efforts.
ICS is a functionally based structure that manages the people
responding to an incident. The system uses functional titles
such as Communications Officer and Operations Section Chief
so that anyone with the requisite training can step into
that job, regardless of their day-to-day job and regardless
of what agency or level of government they work for.
Upon
arrival at an incident, the affected local government typically
sets up the ICS. The ranking fire official on scene or the
ranking police official are likely to take the role of Incident
Commander and others will take that position as more senior
officers arrive on scene. This example is the key to ICS.
Everyone uses the same terminology, and everyone understands
the same functional job. Thus, the ICS structure can be used
as the response framework for multi-jurisdictional events,
such as when five counties, the state, and federal government
all respond to a single incident. All subsequent responding
personnel from different locales fit into a functional organization.
This minimizes confusion about who is going to do what to
what or whom. While many local and federal government agencies
already use ICS, it is not uniformly used and was not a national
requirement—until now.
ICS incorporates a Unified Command (UC), and an optional
Area Command—important elements in multi-jurisdictional
or multi-agency domestic incident management. In applying
the ICS standards to exercises it has designed, ICF International
has seen that the UC promotes a team effort and overcomes
many of the inefficiencies that can occur when different
agencies operate without a common system or organizational
framework. We find that when the UC is applied our clients
maximize their exercise experience to assure participation
of all agencies with jurisdictional authority, or functional
responsibility for any or all aspects of an incident, as
well as those able to provide specific resource support.
We have seen the best applications of the UC structure when
the following conditions exist:
- organizing robust contribution to the process of determining
overall incident strategies and selecting objectives
- ensuring
that joint planning for tactical activities is accomplished
in accordance with approved incident objectives
- ensuring the
integration of tactical operations
- approving, committing,
and making optimum use of all assigned resources
An Area Command is established either to oversee the management
of multiple incidents that are each being handled by
a separate ICS organization, or to oversee the management
of a very large incident that involves multiple ICS organizations,
either of which is likely for incidents that are not site
specific, geographically dispersed, or evolve over longer
periods of time (such as a bioterrorism event). In this sense,
acts of biological, chemical, radiological, and/or nuclear
terrorism represent particular challenges for the traditional
ICS structure and will require extraordinary coordination
between federal, state, local, tribal, private-sector, and
nongovernmental organizations.
ICF International advocates the use of the Area Command option
to avoid unnecessary competition for the same resources,
such as when there are a number of incidents in the
same area and of the same type (e.g., two or more hazardous
material or oil spills, and fires). In designing
an exercise, this command system approach can be enhanced,
if necessary, by response operations steps, in addition
to those used for a single incident. These steps might
include the activation of Emergency Operations Centers
and/or a Unified Command.
When incidents do not have
similar resource demands, they are usually handled separately
and are coordinated through an Emergency Operations Center
(EOC). If the incidents under the authority of the Area
Command are multi-jurisdictional, then a Unified Area
Command should be established. This allows each jurisdiction
to have representation in the command structure. Area
Command should not be confused with the functions performed
by an EOC. An Area Command oversees management of the
incident(s), while an EOC coordinates support functions
and provides resources support.
The Tool
 The tool in the single response framework is the
National Incident Management System
(NIMS). The result of
two years of federal planning in response to HSPD-5, the
NIMS is designed to take the guidance of the NRP (the guidebook)
and the ICS (the approach) into the actual management of
response activities. NIMS is a tool that helps communities
be better prepared to respond to disasters by providing a
list of action items. In the event of a response, NIMS relies
on the flexible framework of ICS.
ICF International can imagine a future response era when all
agencies across the government and across the country are
responding with the same terminology and framework. The efficiencies
that the NIMS response framework brings will benefit the
victims of every incident. According to HSPD-5, by 2005,
federal departments and agencies will adopt NIMS as a requirement
for federal emergency preparedness grants to state, tribal,
and local governments. States will have two years to become
compliant with NIMS, with the funding of grants in 2007 conditioned
upon that compliance.
The NIMS provides a nationwide template
enabling federal, state, local, and tribal governments, and
private sector and nongovernmental organizations to work
together effectively and efficiently to prevent, prepare
for, respond to, and recover from domestic incidents regardless
of cause, size, or complexity. To enhance our services to
our clients, all of ICF International’s Emergency Management
and Homeland Security staff are certified by FEMA that they
have successfully completed its Independent Study Course
#700 on NIMS. Moreover, selected senior staff have taken
an additional in-depth, privately taught course to ensure
we are prepared to help our clients achieve compliance with
NIMS and improve the management of emergencies.
Our training
in the NIMS, and feedback from state and local clients, indicate
that the federal initiatives can build upon efforts already
underway or previously achieved at the state and local levels.
A number of jurisdictions have been applying the practices
advocated by the ICS, NIMS, and the NRP for a number of years.
The challenge ahead is to translate good existing efforts,
and new federal insights, to integrate disciplines and unify
response protocols in a way that enables an efficient and
enhanced response effort at all levels of government.
For
example, ICF International recently received its first assignment
to help a local government in Florida to update its Comprehensive
Emergency Management Plan (CEMP) to be compliant with the
NRP and NIMS. This client already has a strong emergency
management program, but wants to be sure all its responders
understand the language and structure that these two new
federal initiatives have created.
Our emergency management
experts will study the local CEMP and work with a local planning
team to augment the existing plan with the new requirements.
We will conduct training and facilitate an exercise to allow
the response personnel to practice under the new management
framework. It won’t be a major change for the local
government, but it will be the foundation for more organized
and efficient response when the state and federal government
are asked to support the local government in a major incident.
Learn more about NIMS
and ICF International’s
capabilities in exercises.
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