Utilizing NIMS and ICS Models in State-Level Agencies

Homeland Security, NIMS, and ICS

Through initiatives designed to continually improve the procedures integral to the operations of state-level Homeland Security, the agency may review the fit between the National Incident Management System (NIMS) and Incident Command System (ICS) models and the desired outcomes of its own operations. These reviews can result in closer alignment across the three organizations, an objective with the potential to substantively increase overall cross-agency operational effectiveness. The key operational and procedural areas discussed in this review include common communication and information management systems, the management of resources, and multi-agency coordination. In the 10 years since NIMS was established, the country has experienced several natural disasters that have provided opportunity for refining the components of NIMS and ICS. This discussion provides insight into the benefits to be derived by state-level Homeland Security agencies from the NIMS and ICS models.

Nested Design and Redundancy

A first point of consideration is that the Incident Command System (ICS) is a subcomponent of the National Incident Management System (NIMS). The nested structure of the key disaster response agencies is an intentional manifestation of the recognition of shared approaches, frameworks, and essential operations of several conceptually conjoined organizations. The ICS is defined by the United States Center for Excellence in Disaster Management & Humanitarian Assistance as "a set of personnel, policies, procedures, facilities, and equipment, integrated into a common organizational structure designed to improve emergency response operations of all types and complexities" ("ICS," 2004). Within the standardized structures of multiple engaged agencies, there is an intentional redundancy. While the term word redundancy tends to convey a pejorative critique, an upside to redundancy is especially germane to disaster response. The evident redundancy across ICS, the NICS, and Homeland Security operations paves the way for increased efficiency, presuming that those redundancies are communicated in a clear, pertinent, and timely manner.

Multi-Agency Coordination

From its inception, the ICS framework was designed to a scalable, adaptable agency that utilizes the familiar structure of command hierarchy that enables people from diverse areas and disciplines to conduct efficacious responses to disaster events, and to function collaboratively within initiatives directed at homeland security ("ICS," 2004). A core competency of the Incident Command System is that it is by design capable of integrating actions and resources from disparate agencies with a shared mission: response to disaster or threat of disaster. Indeed, placement of the ICS at the coordinating center of response is indicative of the recognition that "response requires an array of interdependent competencies, and it is the need to rapidly integrate these competencies that gave rise to and continues to provide the compelling logic for the ICS" (Moynihan, 2009, p.4). The level at which people from multiple agencies, who are unaccustomed to working together on a routine basis, do achieve seamless communication and operational plans is pivotal to conducting efficacious disaster response (Moynihan, 2009). Multi-agency planning is the base from which effective, comprehensive implementation must proceed.

Common Communication and Information Management Systems

From this, it is apparent that the important contributions of multiple agencies to disaster response include the provision of standard responses and routinized operational procedures. These standard responses and routinized operational procedures serve to accomplish a number of substantive efficiencies, including coordination of common communication and information systems (Moynihan, 2009). Through these common structures, the probability is lessened that miscommunication -- or worse, useless action -- with consume scarce resources and erode crucial response time. Indeed, a primary function of the Incidence Command System is to provide an optimized structure for first-on-scene responders ("ICS," 2004).

Management of Resources

Resource management must take place on several levels, both within and across the multiple agencies that engage in a response. Communication about the status of available resources must be comprehensive and clear, reaching all relevant stakeholders in a timely manner. In order to communicate and track the status of shared resources, disaster response agencies use an Incident Action Plan, a tool employed by the incident supervisors from all represented agencies which can ensure that the collective agency efforts are harmonized ("ICS," 2004). Here, too, the familiar and standardized format of Incident Action Plans helps accomplish coherent, efficient communication of the response objectives ("ICS," 2004).

Tracking and accounting for all key personnel and the main assets during a disaster response is a substantial challenge since most aspects are in a state of flux and there is a continual need to know the exact status of all resources at all times. Indeed, the complexity of resource management during a disaster is manifested by the many categories that must be addressed. Many changeable categories make up resources management processes, including the following: 1) The categorization of resources, complicated by the fact that the coding of resources ordinarily follows agency standards for the multiple participating entities; 2) requesting or ordering the required resources, or resources for which there may be anticipated need; 3) dispatching resources according to prioritized need; 4) tracking resources in transit and at destination locations; 5) reimbursement for resources as needed; and 6) resource recovery during phases of the response or at the solution point ("ICS," 2004). The categorical structure of resource management as outlined in ICS procedures contains designations for assigned, available, and out-of-service resources ("ICS," 2004). Framing resource management in this way promotes rapid, accurate communication about the status of all available resources, a factor that is critical to multi-agency coordination of effort.