Origins of the National Incident Management System

Origins of the NIMS

John D. Rockefeller once quipped that, "I always try to turn every disaster into an opportunity." Through studying the nature of disasters and disaster preparedness, the student of government and organizational management can take the opportunity to learn from the mistakes of the past and assist in establishing more effective institutions for the future. This brief paper will cover the origins of the National Incident Management System (NIMS), the National Response Plan (NRP) and tackle whether such entities assist in mitigating disaster or only contribute bureaucracy and obstacles to the relief of those most in need.

On February 28, 2003, President Bush enacted the Homeland Security Presidential Directive which ordered the Secretary of Homeland Security to create NIMS. The NIMS is intended to provide a consistent, flexible, and adjustable national framework to enable Federal, State and local governments and private sector and nongovernmental organizations to work together effectively and efficiently to prepare for, prevent, respond to, and recover from domestic incidents, regardless of cause, size, or complexity, including acts of catastrophic terrorism. The key items that NIMS establishes is: 1) an Incident Command System, which is a unified command to coordinate the efforts of many jurisdictions and also provide for and assure joint decisions on objectives, strategies, plans, priorities, and public communications; 2) Standardized Communication, which establish interoperable communications systems for both incident and information management which allows all agencies and jurisdictions to have a common operating picture for a more efficient and effective incident response and 3) a Joint Information System, which provides the public with timely and accurate incident information.

The NRF is different from the NIMS in that rather than mitigating the disaster it focuses on response and short-term recovery, articulates the doctrine, principles and architecture by which our nation responds to all-hazard disasters across all levels of government and all sectors of communities. The NRF is responsive to repeated federal, state, local and private sector requests for a streamlined document that is less bureaucratic and more user-friendly. The NRF also focuses on preparedness and encourages a higher level of readiness across all jurisdictions.