The National Incident Management System (NIMS) was created as a system for emergency management, response, and retrieval. The Incident Command System (ICS) is a typical approach to the administration, coordination, and organization of rescue operations that offers a standard structure under which personnel from many agencies can be productive. NIMS is a standardized, national, systematic strategy with several elements like preparedness. Before any significant crisis, ongoing preparatory measures are conducted to develop effective disaster control and emergency response procedures. Communications and Information Management is another component of NIMS where the importance of a uniform operational concept and the criteria essential for an integrative approach to communications are highlighted (Nichols & Denham, 2021). Resource Management, which ensures the mobility of resources is flexible and responsive to the incident’s demand, is also a component of NIMS. The Command and Management component of NIMS provides efficient incident management and control by offering a standardized incident governance framework.
Key leadership initiatives or support functions are a basis of the standard ICS organizational system where command, a component of ICS, creates incident goals and approves resource allocations. Operations are another component of the ICS protocol that defines, allocates, and manages the assets required to carry out the incident’s objectives. Planning is an element of ICS that aids in monitoring necessary resources in crisis management, and logistics ensures the resources required are ordered (Farcas et al., 2020). Another component of ICS is finance/administration, which helps keep track of all the incident’s financial components and identifies and purchases resources needed for a crisis.
As a result, the NIMS and ICS protocols linked to the phases of emergency management include mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery. The ICS and NIMS command system protocol ensures the mitigation of workers to ensure proper collaboration between organizers without compromising personal autonomy, authority, accountability, or compliance. ICS planning and NIMS preparedness provide organizations with the readiness to deal with any crisis. Resource management and operations ensure the response to a disaster is appropriate. Logistics and maintenance ensure the recovery from the problem is equipped with the right resources by the ICS and NIMS.
Several structures and activities are essential to create and maintain interagency communication and collaboration during disaster management. Governance structures emphasizing goal setting, long-term planning, practices and policy reforms, supervision, and funding are in the mitigation stage. An organizational structure must meet these challenges and specify the roles of authority, obligation, and mutual responsibility only if each community uniquely develops its support system. Developing fundamental values, shared goals, and strategic plans encourages partners to effectively communicate and collaborate, value one another’s knowledge and experience, assume the best intentions, and respect various viewpoints.
As a form of preparedness, monitoring and assessment components ensure colleagues get the data on the effectiveness of their work. It permits partners to collaborate and communicate at the governance, management, and practice levels to evaluate their efficacy and amend their objectives in the context of outcomes. It encourages interagency cooperation and communication at the managerial and operational levels; interagency protocols for knowledge transfer and case management are established, tactical strategies formulated, training and cross-training organized, and the response to a disaster is made effective as a result. Communication that establishes a transparent and trustworthy process detects and handles implementation issues for collaborative and communication processes. Partners can share data, perspectives, and reviews while cooperating as a cohesive team since collaborations establish open lines of communication at all levels resulting in a smooth recovery road while dealing with disasters.
The US Constitution grants the president extraordinary powers in times of catastrophic disasters and national emergencies where the president has the authority to declare significant disasters on behalf of the federal government. The presidential disaster declarations have had several impacts on initiating ICS and NIMS protocols. As a result of the presidential declarations, disaster preparedness programs can be established through the NISM protocol. After the presidential disaster declarations, the operations function of ICS, which includes giving grants to develop plans and programs for disaster preparedness and prevention, has to be immediately launched to help coordinate the disaster operations.
The presidential declarations lead to logistics in the ICS responsible for offering the infrastructure, resources, and commodities required to meet disaster response needs since the government will provide resources to help repair affected institutions resulting in a logistics center being established. After the presidential disaster declaration, the Command and Management component of NIMS is established to ensure a uniform incident management framework during the crisis.
The presidential disaster declaration enables communication to be used to provide awareness about the disaster and give warnings and information about the tragedy. This helps to take measures to minimize the impact of the disaster. Communication can be done through all media and social platforms, making the disaster widely known and providing information to those who don’t. Collaboration is encouraged after the presidential declaration since government organizations are encouraged to corporate and work together to ensure people’s survival during the disaster. Interoperability is the capacity of programs, technology, products, and networks from multiple agencies to exchange information and process it without consumers needing to be present. The interoperability between agencies is therefore promoted following the presidential disaster declarations, which results in a lot of information sharing between agencies and frequently results in the development of workable solutions to the crisis.
References
Farcas, A., Ko, J., Chan, J., Malik, S., Nono, L., & Chiampas, G. (2020). Use of incident command system for disaster preparedness: A model for an emergency department COVID-19 Response. Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness, 15(3).
Nichols, J. K., & Denham, M. (2021). Implementation and effectiveness of the National Incident Management System’s Incident Command System in law enforcement since 2003. Journal of Emergency Management, 19(4), 387–417.