National Incident Management System (NIMS)

The CPG 101 incorporates the concepts of the National Incident Management System (NIMS) into the planning guide. NIMS is the result of Homeland Security Directive Five. The directive came from President Bush February 28, 2003. The goal of NIMS was to offer a necessary foundation for emergency management to identify, prepare, respond and recover in any emergent situation. The approach and vocabulary established with NIMS remains the same nationwide to ensure consistency.

After September 11, 2001, the Department of Homeland of Security was formed in response to the terrorist attacks. Out of the birth of the agencies formed, the National Incident Management System (NIMS) was created to allow clear allocation of resources and a systematic approach to emergency management. The system can be effective in many responses where many levels of government and response are imminent to respond to the disaster. Many of these agencies are emergency management, police, fire, health, and EMS from all levels of government. NIMS can be used on any type of incident and of any size or scope in nature.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) would become the central point-of-contact within the national government in responding to incidents. Since formation in 1979, FEMA’s core missions were to enhance the government’s ability to survive a foreign attack, and to assist state and local authorities in disaster response (Carafano, 2005). And while the two core missions seem heterogenous in scope at times from an outside perspective, the biggest difference between the two tasks is duration. A man-made disaster may be over in a matter of minutes as compared to a hurricane lasting several days, but in both instances the road to recovery is long. In order to streamline response and recovery in either scenario, FEMA was reorganized with new directives to support comprehensive emergency management practices (CRS, 2006). Today, FEMA provides the standard approach and guidance that many local communities may not have due to funding, training, and

Ensuring Resilience to Disasters has more tasking’s than another mission and involves many different agencies to accomplish those tasks. The four tasks are to mitigate hazards, enhance preparedness, ensure effective emergency response, and rapidly recover. The main agency that is responsible for these tasking’s is FEMA. FEMA’s mission is to “reduce the loss of life and property and protect communities nationwide from all hazards, including natural disasters, acts of terrorism, and other man-made disasters” (FEMA, 2017, p.2). FEMA works with federal and State services to assist them in accomplishing their goals. They also assist local services by assisting in setting up emergency management agencies (LEMA) and set guidance for Emergency Operations Planning (EOP). EOP’s are “plans that provide an overview of the jurisdiction’s preparedness and response strategies. It describes expected hazards, outlines agency roles and responsibilities, and explains how the jurisdiction keeps the plan current.” (FEMA, 2010,

The President of the United States of America issued the Homeland Security Presidential Directive (HSPD)-5 on February 28th, 2003 for managing Domestic incidents like terrorist attacks. The HSPD-5 helped create the National Incident Management System (NIMS), (Homeland Security, 2004). The use of the Incident Management System and Incident Command System can help manage the response to an attack involving Weapons of Mass Destruction among many other emergencies. These systems allow for coordination to be used in a proper and efficient manner. Without a system in place communication and coordination can fall apart and the response will not be prompt as it needs to be to protect lives and infrastructure.

1. Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR), is a program that yearly reports, collects, and monitors statistics revolving the Part I crimes. There is a total of eight Part I crimes including rape, robbery, murder, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and lastly arson. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), operates the UCR program while working together with law enforcement. Law enforcement report their statistics to the FBI and from there they take that information and place it into the historical files.

Emergency services face vast difficulties in the operations field when handling emergency situations, whether it comes from handling a minor accident to a catastrophic catastrophy. Many of the difficulties do not come from the actual incident, but instead they arise from forming a rescue team containing different agencies and people. For the benefit off all individuals participating, it is imperative that there be a unified command structure in place to effectively coordinate and oversee the tasks that need to be accomplished. The need of a unified command was seen from the hardships faced in incidents, bringing forth the development of the Incident Command System that was designed to be used in an array of conditions, to bring all

Law enforcement agency starting in 1920’s realized the need to standardized criminal reporting. Every agency from privet to locale, county, and state had different criminal codes and various ways of track the frequency and categorizing crime. The end resulted was the creation of Uniform Crime Report (UCR), National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS).

This paper will explain an overview perspective of the September 11th attacks, as well as examine the response of local emergency personnel to this incident. I will discuss the lack of coordination amongst emergency personnel, and also analyze the connection between this event and the National Incident Management System (NIMS). This paper will also reveal the challenges faced due to interoperability and the ways in which improvements were made and improvements many believe still need to be made.

After the horrific attacks on September 11th, 2001, The United States had a new mission at hand. They needed to repair their procedures of responding to natural disasters or massive attacks. They needed to create a system that would ensure that everyone, from local law enforcement to the top guy in the federal government, were in sync and on the same page for training purposes and during actual national incidents. The American government did a review of the 2001 attacks and discussed what caused the issue, what steps or procedures were carried out, and what could have been done in order to correct any faults that might of taken place. One of the main issues discovered, was all the different agencies, departments, and private sectors

I see the utility for its intended audience, as well as for a casual reader, curious about emergency response for incidents which occur on or near college campuses. The format of the article allowed me as novice to the National Incident Management System to stay engaged and grasp the concept. There are only there main sections to this article, “Understanding NIMS”, “Becoming Compliant” and the “Conclusion”. The two sub-sections of this Understanding NIMS section manage to provide an overview that helps the reader to understand NIMS in just seven short paragraphs. The Illinois Criminal Justice Authority report offers a brief glimpse of history about campuses incidents, without going into great detail, to spark the interest of the

NIMS is a uniform set of processes and procedures that emergency responders at all levels of government will use to conduct response operations. NIMS helps improve cooperation and interoperability among organizations. The framework is adaptable and accessible. It encourages all hazards preparedness. NIMS enables a variety of organizations to contribute successfully in emergency management and incident response. NIMS creates uniform professional emergency management and incident response practices.

Today, the Incident Command System (ICS) is a major component of NIMS and is widely used in emergency management response. However, this was not always the case. According to David A. McEntire and Gregg Dawson, authors of the article, “The intergovernmental Context,” ICS was originally developed by the fire service in 1970. Its purpose was to assist in the command of wildfire events. It was unique because it standardized operations, yet offered flexibility so that it could be used on any number of events, regardless of size or type (McEntire & Dawson, 2007, p. 63).

The NIMS model of incident Command Systems (ICS) will be used as the framework for all responses to hazardous material releases. This will allow flexibility to rapidly activate and establish an organizational structure around the functions that need to be performed to efficiently mitigate an incident (Washoe County LEPC, 2006).

Establishing the incident command system is first and foremost. The system establishes a common organizational structure that is conducive for different types of agencies as well as multiple jurisdictions to be able to effectively work together in response to the situation. The components of this system include the Incident Commander, who oversees all aspects of the disaster response, operations, planning, logistics and finance/administrative (Briggs & Twomey, 2003).