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NIMS News
Prior
to September 2004 | September
2004 | October 2004 |
November 2004 | December
2004
September 2004
Michael D. Brown,
under secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security
for Emergency Preparedness and Response, announced today
the release of the new IS-200 Basic Incident Command System
course for Federal Disaster Workers and all emergency personnel
with disaster response duties. This course is designed to identify ICS features and principles, describing in more detail elements such as: establishment and transfer of command, management by objectives, unified command, ICS management functions, organizational flexibility, unity and chain of command, span of control, incident action plans, resource management, common terminology and clear text, integrated communications and personnel accountability. A disaster scenario threads throughout the course to describe the common responsibilities associated with incident assignments from a federal disaster response workforce perspective. It was developed to compliment the I-100 course for Federal Disaster Workers, and to take the student’s education to the ICS 200 level. The specific target audience is the FEMA disaster response workforce and others involved in disaster response to the Incident Command System. IS-200 does not replace the IS-195 Basic ICS course, but serves as a companion especially developed for federal disaster workers. Register and complete the course online on the NETC Virtual Campus at http://training.fema.gov/emiweb. []
Set up for the public to tour, the command center also acted as a temporary police station at the event. Lost children sought safety there until their parents could find them, and forgotten personal property was dropped off and claimed there. “We look at this as being just another tool for law enforcement to use,” said Hurricane City Police Chief Lynn Excell. “It’s something that we can utilize in events such as Peach Days, the county fair, the bike races, marathons, etc. to help give us a place to coordinate law enforcement services. … It’s a focal point.” The mobile command center is a place where, if people have lost kids or a problem at an event, they know they can go and find help. “We use it a lot for that,” continued Excell. “It’s also going to be used for major incidents if we have them. If we have situations that will require law enforcement to be on a scene for an extended period of time, it gives us the ability to move an office out there to where we can coordinate with other agencies, coordinate with ourselves, an area where we can plan and not have to separate to do it.” Hurricane City has had the need for such a command center for some time now. They’ve been involved in major incidents and events where they’ve needed it in the past and ended up using the St. George unit. “In looking at this, we knew that we had to go into it slowly. We knew we had to do it as something we could obtain without impacting budgets, and so that’s the way we started on this, and that’s why we focused on this particular unit. We were able to get the money to purchase it through the sale of surplus vehicles,” said Excell. “The city allowed us to use the money off the sale of those to purchase the motor home.” Hurricane City Police Department received a $25,000 grant through homeland security to transform the motor home into a mobile command center. Beds, couches and carpeting were removed, and rubber flooring was put into place. Whiteboards were installed, and the lighting was redone to accommodate law enforcement activities. The back bedroom was also transformed into a conference room. “We’ve had major incidents in this town where we have utilized what’s called the Unified Command System. It’s part of the National Incident Management System, where you bring in multiple agencies … and you bring commanders in and you utilize the expertise of all those people, and that’s what this command room is for. To where people can come back here, organize, plan, to get good ideas from a multitude of people,” explained Excell. “Where the money’s been given to us through our grant process, we have also made this available to our search and rescues and to other law enforcement agencies, also the Southwest Regional Hazardous Materials Response Team,” stated Excell. The motor home was modified after comparisons were made to the St. George unit, each to compliment the other. They were designed to interconnect with each other. Pulled up side by side, they can be plugged together so the two communicate. The new Hurricane Mobile Command Center can also be connected to the St. George hostage negotiation unit. While the St. George unit acts as the operations center of major incidents, the Hurricane unit will act as command center, giving officers the ability to handle situations on scene. The command center is fully equipped to take care of officers for an extended period of time. It has a restroom, fridge, microwave and running water. It is also kept stocked with drinks. Though Hurricane Police did most of the work to equip the command center, they are not claiming it as their own. “This is Hurricane’s,” said Excell. “We did this for the city. I don’t care what event they need this on. If there’s a water break that’s going to last them three days, if they call us and say ‘we need this there,’ it’s there. … Every community helps us, and we’re here to help the other communities and the other agencies that need the help, too.” In addition to the mobile command center, the Hurricane Incident Management truck was also recently acquired. “The Incident Management truck was a surplus ambulance years ago from Nellis Air Force Base,” said Excell. “The city got it for pennies at the time. The ambulance department used it as a backup ambulance for a few years. They got to the point that they were ready to rotate it out of their fleet, and when they rotated it out, we asked them if we could have it and make it into a useable tool for us. We were able to obtain a grant through the state of Utah for approximately $17,000 and through that grant we were able to equip it as a crime scene truck.” Inside the truck is a mobile crime lab. It gives Hurricane City investigators Lt. Copeland, Brandon Buell and Jared Brisk, the ability to roll out on a crime scene, major incident or accident and collect evidence as they conduct a full, professional investigation on site. “Once again, it was something I was able to obtain through grants,” []
In the post-Sept. 11, 2001, world, where a terrorist’s weapon of choice could be a biological or chemical agent, the military is adopting a civilian model of incident-management response. Representatives from Air Force Civil Engineering Support Agency (AFCESA) at Tyndall Air Force Base, Fla., and Texas A&M Engineering Extension Institute, brought the Air Force Weapons of Mass Destruction Installation Training and Exercise Program to Misawa last week. Training culminated in a 35th Fighter Wing exercise Friday involving simulated exposure to smallpox and terrorists blowing up a car carrying industrial pesticide near a physical training class on the base beach. The teams are conducting the program at select Air Force bases around the world and recently finished training on Kadena Air Base, Okinawa. The Air Force WMD program started about two years ago, was prompted in large part by the Sept. 11 terror attacks, said Maj. Kurt Lee, the only active-duty member and team leader for AFCESA. “After Sept. 11, several of the Air Staff organizations who directed this program felt there was a need to support the installations in completing their mission in conducting WMD/terrorist attack exercises and training for that,” Lee said. The intent is to synchronize the way civilians and military personnel would respond to such incidents since each can and likely would assist the other in the event of a chemical or biological attack, Lee said. The military has resources that could help local communities; and if a military installation were hit, surrounding jurisdictions likely would be impacted, as well. The Texas A&M team, through federal grant dollars, provides emergency-response training to civilian communities across the United States, said Jory Grassinger, an instructor at the university’s emergency services training institute. The extension team works on an Air Force contract to support its military training program. The Defense Department “has always had its own method of responding to incidents because they have a unique mission,” Lee said. “Really, before, there wasn’t as much interaction expected between the military and civilian responders. Now the president is mandating that we work together because the military has so many resources available.” President Bush has mandated a National Incident Management System, Lee said, so that Defense Department and civilian terminology and organizational structures match. Rather than one incident commander on scene, for example, the military will go to a unified command or group of decision-makers, like many civilian communities do already. “The whole intent of the National Incident Management System is that everybody is organized the same way,” Lee said. “When support agencies outside the installation come in to support us, they know … where they fit … and we know when we show up who we report to, where we fit.” One of the intents of the program, Lee added, is to get bases to start thinking about how they would interact with the local community, either in training for or responding to a terrorist attack. However, overseas there are challenges with “language, jurisdiction, customs, possibly willingness of the community to really recognize that this is a real threat,” he said. Another challenge is the distance from the United States and domestic support agencies, such as the FBI. Overseas bases need to plan for that, Lee said, figuring “it may be two days before we can get anybody to do this, how are we going to handle that in the interim? That should be part of the wing plan.” Much of the wing at Misawa knew there was to be an exercise Friday but didn’t know the details. Friday morning, a “fake supervisor” called up one of the dormitory managers to report that an airman did not show up for work, said Misawa spokesman Capt. John Haynes. According to that exercise scenario, emergency responders were to find the airman dead from smallpox exposure. Senior Airman Kimberly Mahan, part of Explosive Ordnance Disposal training operations, 35th Civil Engineer Squadron, spent most of the exercise at the base beach, where EOD was sent to investigate a suspicious car that turned out to be laden with an industrial pesticide. “We had people in chem gear and a bomb suit over that with forced air,” she said. “I think it went fairly well. It was good practice for the next time we have to do this.” Though Air Force bases are required to have a weapons of mass destruction exercise annually, they’re not 100 percent prepared — yet — for the real thing, Lee said. “I think across the board this is fairly new to most installations, and so they’re going through a lot of growing pains. These are very difficult, complicated scenarios; not something that most of the folks are familiar with on how to handle,” he said. “Through this program, they get better prepared.”
The United States is moving too fast in implementing a new system for standardizing the response to terrorist attacks and other disasters, top emergency responders told a House of Representatives subcommittee Wednesday. State and local emergency agencies receiving federal Homeland Security Department funding could be required within two years to implement the new National Incident Management System (NIMS), which was created March 1 under a Feb. 28 directive from President Bush. The system lacks clarity, however, and does not provide enough training or funding for personnel, according to emergency responders who testified before the Select Committee on Homeland Security's Emergency Preparedness and Response Subcommittee. " The start of fiscal year 2006 is too soon to begin to tie the receipt of federal terrorism-response grant funding to NIMS implementation," Los Angeles County Fire Chief Michael Freeman told the subcommittee. " The NIMS has 518 measurable requirements. It is unclear to us whether DHS will require implementation of all 518 or whether a percentage will be required or whether there will be a top 10," Freeman said. "Implementing all 518 requirements within the next year will be a Herculean and perhaps unreasonable task." Freeman's reference to 518 requirements appeared to stem from the National Incident Management System Compliance Assurance Support Tool, notice of which was published in early June in the Federal Register. A Homeland Security official said Thursday that the tool, which initially contained more than 500 questions intended to aid state and local agencies in assessing their compliance with the new system, is still under development and has already been shortened considerably. In any case, the official said, the tool should not be seen as a checklist against which Homeland Security will measure compliance. In his February directive, Bush ordered the creation of "a single, comprehensive approach to domestic incident management ... to ensure that all levels of government across the nation have the capability to work efficiently and effectively together." Two days later, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge issued the National Incident Management System, placing the widely used Incident Command System (ICS) at its center. The system establishes "standardized incident management processes, protocols and procedures" for incident command organization, communications and preparedness, Homeland Security said in a March fact sheet. The effort is intended to allow first responders from different jurisdictions and disciplines to better coordinate responses to natural and unnatural disasters. Both Bush and Ridge said at the time of the system's launch that adopting the new system would be a condition for all federal emergency-preparedness grants starting in fiscal 2005. The approach appears to enjoy wide support. The federal Sept. 11 commission endorsed linking Homeland Security grants to Incident Command System compliance, and, in a "report card" on the Republican House bill to implement the commission's recommendations, Select Committee on Homeland Security Democrats yesterday praised a provision calling for such a link. Ridge told governors in a Sept. 8 letter, however, that in fiscal 2005, federal grants need only be "leveraged" to support the new incident-management system's approach. Deputy Associate Director David Kaufman of Homeland Security's Office for Domestic Preparedness, which administers the bulk of the department's emergency-response grants, said in an interview that the National Incident Management System Integration Center's determination of "what implementation and compliance means and all the rest" will take time. As a result, Kaufman said, "We can't exactly require that compliance this month." Senior subcommittee Democrat Bennie Thompson of Mississippi said at yesterday's hearing that Homeland Security has left unclear both what grants will be affected and how compliance will be determined and is imposing "unfunded mandates" on states and municipalities. " DHS expects the states to incorporate NIMS into their emergency operations plans, coordinate and provide technical assistance to local entities regarding NIMS and institutionalize the use of the Incident Command System," Thompson said, citing Ridge's Sept. 8 letter. " I am concerned that DHS is not providing additional grant funds to achieve these goals and that they are unfunded mandates. For example, I am not aware of any additional funding for state and local governments to train personnel on the NIMS, nor am I aware of any funding to revise and publish new emergency operations plans that are consistent with NIMS," Thompson said. A Homeland Security official confirmed that no dedicated grants are planned for National Incident Management System implementation, saying the costs will vary so widely from jurisdiction to jurisdiction that such grants would be difficult to administer. " It appears," Thompson said, "that DHS expects the states to leverage their general ODP grant funds for this purpose and choose between implementing NIMS and other equally pressing needs like specialized equipment, training, terrorism exercises and enhanced security at critical infrastructure sites." Kaufman portrayed the incident-management system as a constant that should run through all emergency-preparedness efforts, rather than a separate program to be addressed as such. " What we're saying is we're giving out billions of dollars," he said. "You can't be enhancing your preparedness adequately if you are not addressing NIMS implementation." The integration center's acting chief, Gil Jamieson, stressed at yesterday's hearing that various training programs are being offered to help state and local agencies implement the new system. Jamieson also sought to clarify the timeline for implementation. " To the maximum extent possible, states, territories, tribes and local entities are encouraged to achieve full NIMS implementation and institutionalization across the entire response system during FY 2005," Jamieson said. "Applicants will be required to certify as part of their FY 2006 grant applications that they have met the FY 2005 NIMS requirements." " To the extent that full implementation is not possible during FY 2005, federal preparedness assistance will be leveraged to complete NIMS implementation by FY 2006. By FY 2007, receipt of federal preparedness assistance will be conditioned upon full compliance with the NIMS," Jamieson said. Mindful of the deadlines Jamieson outlined, Freeman and other witnesses involved in emergency response stressed the obstacles their colleagues will face in implementing the new system. The medical field's concerns were not sufficiently taken into account in development of the documents governing the incident-management system, said George Washington University professor Joseph Barbera, co-director of the university's Institute for Crisis, Disaster and Risk Management. Barbera said the new system is based on firefighting procedures and was altered to address police and firefighter, but not medical, concerns. " For many medical professionals reading NIMS, the language, concepts and inherent value are not intuitively obvious or clearly presented," he said. " The decision to establish a National Incident Management System must be applauded," Barbera said. "The development process used in creating the NIMS document, however, was not as open to professional input as many of us would have preferred. It is particularly unclear whether the NIMS development process provided a full hearing for the concerns and issues of acute-care medical and hospital professionals." Barbera participated in the responses to the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and was chairman of the District of Columbia Hospital Association Emergency Preparedness Committee at the time of the 2001 anthrax mailings. He said the latter incident showed the need for the National Incident Management System. " The anthrax incident demonstrated that the capabilities to effectively manage a large-scale, complex and rapidly moving health event were lacking, especially compared with the management success at an equally complex Pentagon response a month earlier," Barbera said. " The central feature in the failures of the 2001 anthrax incident in the national capital area, in my professional opinion, was the absence of effective national incident-management systems at the local, state and federal levels," Barbera said. "The adoption of the National Incident Management System, NIMS, if properly managed, will address this important gap in medical and public-health preparedness." Police would be at a disadvantage relative to fire and medical personnel, since the latter are both better equipped and more familiar with overarching incident-command systems, said National Director of Legislative Affairs Steve Lenkart of the International Brotherhood of Police Officers. Lenkart called for more money for police departments to help bridge the gap. " The federal
preparedness grant system should expect to spend money on
these deficiencies, perhaps disproportionately to other entities,
and allow extra time to incorporate the principles of NIMS and
ICS into their procedures," Lenkart said. "It serves
no purpose to involve police officers in a system where they
will be handicapped by a lower level of training and equipment,
backed up by deficient policies and a lack of funding." []
The Office of Interoperability and Compatibility (OIC), part of the Science & Technology directorate, will oversee the wide range of public safety interoperability programs and efforts currently spread across homeland security. These programs address critical interoperability issues relating to public safety and emergency response, including communications, equipment, training, and other areas as needs are identified. "This office will ensure that homeland security is exercising its leadership role to bring local, state, and federal efforts together in a partnership that is essential to national progress on interoperability," said Secretary Ridge. "This is a national effort, not a federal effort, and I thank the first responder community for their initiative and collaboration." Specific responsibilities for the OIC will include: Supporting the creation of interoperability standards; Establishing a comprehensive research, development, testing, and evaluation (RDT&E) program for improving public safety interoperability; Identifying and certifying all DHS programs that touch on interoperability; Integrating coordinated grant guidance across all DHS grant making agencies that touch on public safety interoperability; Overseeing the development and implementation of technical assistance for public safety interoperability; Conducting pilot demonstrations; Creating an interagency interoperability coordination council; and Coordinating and
working closely with the new National
Incident Management System (NIMS)
Integration Center. Homeland security is also distributing communications interoperability improvement tools -- an "Interoperability Continuum" guide, and Statewide Communications Interoperability Planning methodology -- to leaders in all fifty states and fifty high-threat urban areas. The "Interoperability Continuum," developed through local and homeland security collaboration in ten high-threat urban areas, identifies five critical success factors that communities must consider as they work to improve communications interoperability. The Continuum provides guidance for increasing frequency of use of equipment, creating a joint governance structure, developing standard operating procedures, integrating technology solutions with existing systems, and conducting training and exercises. The methodology
for Statewide Communications Interoperability Planning grew
out of homeland security work in the commonwealth of Virginia. []
State and local leaders have three years to establish and implement systems and practices needed to ensure seamless response to emergencies and incidents or else federal grants will be withheld, Homeland Security Department officials said this month. In a letter to governors at the beginning of September, DHS Secretary Tom Ridge said that fiscal 2005 marks the beginning of a requirement for government leaders to begin putting in place practices and policies for the National Incident Management System (NIMS). Federal and local officials are also required to implement NIMS, and officials at all levels of government have cited its assistance in homeland security exercises conducted so far. Following this timeline, fiscal 2006 will be a year for determining what works and what needs to be improved. After fiscal 2007, if DHS officials decide that local officials have not fully implemented NIMS, federal emergency preparedness funding will not be granted to that state or locality, said Michelle McQueeney, a program specialist with the NIMS Integration Center's Standards and Resources Branch. She spoke Sept. 22 at the National Association of State Chief Information Officers' annual conference in New Orleans. DHS officials developed NIMS as a framework that sets baseline capabilities across all levels of government to ensure that when an attack or natural disaster occurs, everyone responding to it is on the same page and can quickly establish a coordinated response, McQueeney said. "It's a balance between flexibility and standardization," she said. NIMS addresses
standards, training and other issues under several broad
categories: Officials at the
center, which was formed in June, have already developed
online training for several specific areas and will be working
on the integration of nationwide systems where necessary,
such as building a national credential database from the
many state databases that must be put in place as part of NIMS implementation,
she said. []
Village officials discussed a proposed NIMS resolution during a Tuesday meeting. The federal government is in the process of developing a national system that will provide a policy framework for how federal, state and local governments interact in the event of a national emergency or attack. The Executive Order that provided the direction mandates that local governments adopt a resolution by Oct. 1 indicating they will work toward becoming NIMS-compliant, officials said. The penalty for not adopting a resolution is that a local government will not be eligible to receive federal homeland security assistance, officials said. Ostenburg said he is not against the resolution but is outraged by a required eight-hour class to provide them with an understanding of the system and the knowledge to work within the system guidelines. Park Forest's session has been scheduled for Oct. 16. Park Forest fire administrator Ron Welch said the entire board does not have to attend, but recommends that the majority of officials try to attend. "This is a beauraucratic act of nonsense," Ostenburg said. "I have no intention of participating." It is unreasonable for village policymakers to have to give up eight hours of a day to gain information about a system whose funding will never be given to Park Forest, Ostenburg asserted. It makes sense for police, fire and public works employees — first responders in an emergency to attend — but not the elected officials, Ostenburg maintained. The system includes federal grant money that will be divided between states. It has already been announced that 50 percent of Illinois' share will be given to Chicago, Ostenburg said, and the rest will be given to larger Cook County regional agencies such as South Suburban Mayors and Managers Association. SSMMA has already indicated that money "will not go directly to our community, or any individual municipality," Ostenburg said. Ostenburg said he is willing to approve the resolution if the rest of the board so chooses, but will not attend the eight-hour class. The item will be put on the agenda for next Monday's regular meeting... |
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