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DHS backs incident plan
BY Dibya Sarkar
March 1, 2004

Homeland Security Department officials have approved a standardized incident management plan that is expected to help federal, tribal, state and local agencies better coordinate emergency responses.

The National Incident Management System establishes a basic framework of organization, terminology, training and credentialing, identifying resources and interoperable communications and information management practices crucial when multiple first responders from different jurisdictions converge on major disasters.

Below are the core elements of NIMS:

* The Incident Command System establishes command, operations, planning, logistics and finance/administration as five functional areas in a standard incident management organization. Such a structure will help coordinate multiagency objectives, strategies, priorities and public communications.

* Standardized interoperable communications systems and information management allow responders to have a common picture of an incident response.

* Consistent preparedness includes planning, training, exercises, qualification and certification, equipment procurement and certification and publication management.

* A Joint Information System provides timely, unified and accurate incident information to the public.

* A NIMS Integration Center will provide strategic direction and oversight of NIMS. The center will also evaluate lessons learned; collect and disseminate best practices; and develop national standards for education and training, first responder communications and equipment, standardization of equipment maintenance, qualification and credentialing of emergency responders, and categorizing resources.

"I recognize the efforts of the dedicated professionals from state and local governments, law enforcement, the fire and emergency management communities, emergency medical services, tribal associations, public health, the private sector, public works, and nongovernmental organizations across America who teamed together in a collaborative effort to create NIMS," said DHS Secretary Tom Ridge in a prepared statement.

The administration has proposed $7 million in fiscal 2005 to develop and implement NIMS. Federal officials began developing NIMS following a Homeland Security Presidential Directive issued about one year ago.

Both the International Association of Emergency Managers and the National Emergency Management Association support NIMS.

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Emergency Disaster Drill
WTWM-TV
Columbus, GA

It's been a day of thinking, planning and reacting for Columbus public safety workers. Their skills were tested during an emergency disaster drill. Only they had no idea what they were responding to.

The goal is to make sure the Police, Sheriff's, Fire and EMS departments are all working in tandem. Thursday, officials were divided into two teams. Each were given the same scenario and the same set of facts. The teams were told there had been an explosion near the Trade Center and there were dozens of people either trapped our wounded. Although the entire drill played out in a classroom mistakes were made and evaluations were done afterward.

Those in the front of the room were placed at the hypothetical scene and acted as the command post. They communicated with dispatch and with responding units in the field. Every so often dispatch would send out new information regarding other explosions and chemical smells. The teams eventually were told the scenario playing out was that of the Oklahoma City bombing. "Going back to Oklahoma City, when they first got the call it was total chaos we have learned lessons from that and now we are teaching it to our guys," says Battalion Chief Bobby Dutton of the Columbus Fire and EMS Department.

The training is part of a federally mandated program called The National Incident Management System or NIMS. It requires all local and state governments to operate under the same emergency response plan. by October first.

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Emergency communications upgrades making progress
by Gary A. Harki STAFF WRITER
West Virginia

CLARKSBURG -- West Virginia is ahead of other states in complying with a system designed to standardize communications between emergency responders throughout the nation, officials say.

The system's original deadline was Oct. 1, but that has been extended into 2005, said Neal Sharp, EMS manager for the regional response program.

In the 1970s a string of major wildfires brought firefighters from all over the country together to battle the blazes, said Roger Johnson, training coordinator for the state regional response teams.

When that occurred, mass confusion erupted because of the lack of a command structure or common terminology between all firefighters.

"What we call a tanker here is a truck with a water tank on the back of it," Johnson said. "In California it is a C-130 aircraft that drops water onto fires."

The National Incident Management System, created by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, standardizes the terminology and command structure for emergency responders across the nation, Sharp said.

Communications problems erupted among responders in New York on 9-11 prompting the NIMS system, Sharp said.

"If we had a major incident in (a local city) we would have lots of different agencies involved, and they would need some type of system," Johnson said. "NIMS gives them that system."

Fred Smart is the 911 director in Harrison County.

"We already use an incident command system every day, whether it is a small- or large-scale incident," Smart said. "Any time there is a multi-jurisdictional incident within the county, it is used."

Most of the terminology and structure will not change for area responders, Smart said.

Just exactly what the NIMS system will change for area responders has yet to be fully explained by the federal government, Sharp said.

But changes are likely to be more widespread in other states not already using a management system to respond to emergencies, Sharp said.

"There are several components of NIMS at the federal level which are still to be decided," he said. "We are positioned well to be in compliance and already have NIMS training."

Training in NIMS for responders occurred last week in Charleston, Sharp said. Other training dates will be set, he said.

"Our plan is to have a representative from every agency in the state, ambulance, fire departments, etc., and bring them in and train them and then go back and have them train their department," Sharp said.

The Clarksburg Fire Department, like other departments in West Virginia, is waiting to implement the system, said Chief Joe Gonzalez.

"We do not have any problems now in responding," Gonzalez said. "We are set up so that when the information comes down nationally, we will be set up to get on board right away."

Staff writer Gary Harki can be reached at 626-1404 or by e-mail at gharki@exponent-telegram.com

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First responders see scarcity of experts
BY Diane Frank
July 9, 2004

Local and national homeland security exercises have shown that people will be one of the most critical and scarcest resources for first responders, particularly in the technical and command areas, during an actual incident, officials told Congress this week.

Almost a year after the TopOff 2 exercise in Washington state and Illinois, and less than a year before the next national-level exercise kicks off in New Jersey and Connecticut, state, local and federal officials are still working on implementing new systems and policies that were lacking in the multihazard exercise.

TopOff is short for Top Officials, and although nearly 400 smaller, more focused exercises have been conducted nationwide, the TopOff exercises are designed to address a far larger scale, said Corey Gruber, associate director of the Homeland Security Department's newly-renamed Office of State and Local Coordination and Preparedness, who oversees the TopOff exercises.

One of the most obvious problems that TopOff 2 highlighted was the stress on personnel resources at the first responder level, local officials told the House Select Committee on Homeland Security.

Seattle used money from an Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI) grant to equip and train personnel to a level where they could respond to an incident such as a radiological bomb, said Clark Kimerer, deputy chief of operations at the Seattle Police Department.

However, the grant money cannot be used for hiring the additional experts who are needed to help local officials, Kimerer said. They include people who can focus on planning, intelligence, computer and communications technology, "and, quite simply ... help us manage the equipment and systems we are receiving from the UASI process," he said.

Officials in Illinois, which was ground zero for a simulated biological attack that spread nation- and worldwide in the exercise, found that personnel were regularly taken away from their daily missions to help plan and train for TopOff 2, said Thomas Mefferd, director of the DuPage County, Ill., Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management.

As the exercise kickoff approached, planning for it became almost a full-time job, and if an exercise generates that kind of stress on the local system, officials would "need the availability of putting addition personnel into our command and control systems" in an actual emergency he said.

One system that will help with the command and management issues is the National Incident Management System (NIMS) that DHS developed following the second national exercise, some said.

A fundamental discovery during the exercise was the need to clarify and coordinate the priorities and needs of the many jurisdictions involved in an incident, and "NIMS is right on point to address the gaps and needs illuminated by TopOff 2," Kimerer said.

The system is critical because "we must be able to understand, we must be able to know how our counterparts across government are thinking," Mefferd said. But it will only help if officials actually use it in everyday incidents as well as large-scale, he said.

Experiences and lessons learned such as these are critical to preparation by officials across the country, said Suzanne Mencer, executive director of DHS' office, formerly the Office of Domestic Preparedness.

Washington and Illinois are already serving as mentors for New Jersey and Connecticut. Also, department officials are preparing to announce the host venues for TopOff 4. Those states will be invited to monitor and learn from the design and development of the third exercise, she said.

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Online class teaches NIMS
BY Dibya Sarkar
June 30, 2004

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has a new online course to help first responders understand the federal government's new National Incident Management System (NIMS).

"NIMS establishes standard incident management processes, protocols and procedures so that all responders — including those at the federal, state, tribal and local level — can coordinate their responses, share a common focus and place full emphasis on resolving the event," said Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge in a June 29 statement.

"This new course introduces NIMS in a way that is easy and accessible to the nation's emergency responders," he added.

Through a unified command, first responders and emergency managers can work with a common operating picture for a better response. NIMS establishes a framework of organization, terminology, training and credentialing, identifying resources, interoperable communications and information management practices.

DHS' Emergency Management Institute's training experts developed the online course (http://training.fema.gov/EMIWEB/IS/is700.asp), which takes about three hours to complete.

The NIMS Integration Center, which will provide strategic direction and oversight of the system, is being established to develop and facilitate national standards for NIMS education and training.