Incident Command ... the Washington DC Way

An interesting piece written by someone in the fire service ... FEMA and DHS
need to listen to guys like this ... here a snippet of what this career firefighter
has to say about the new NIMS system:

We in the fire service who are familiar with the ICS and have, hopefully, already integrated its principles into our regular operations, are better able than some agencies (like the poor cops) to at least understand what has now become the core of the Command and Management component of NIMS. Other attributes of this bigger plan are an interest in fostering interoperability and standardization across jurisdictions and agencies, and a focus on preparation and resource management, each of which are admittedly goals that are best approached at a federal or at least multiagency level. The potential for this new government program to act as a conduit for bringing needed resources to bear on improving emergency preparedness is also a plus, even though funding (or, more specifically, the threat of losing it) is currently only used to enforce the program's mandatory adoption.
Unfortunately, like many government programs, NIMS creates layers of bureaucracy that will confuse and confound most emergency services workers and require a contingent of bureaucrats to make it operate. It expands on an already potentially complex schema (ICS) that is, in everyday practice in most communities, rarely implemented, and even more rarely necessary. Furthermore, as a collection of mostly untested components, the ability of such a contraption as NIMS to perform as designed is questionable.

A great deal of the awkwardness of NIMS's Command and Management features come from its attempt to accommodate multiple agencies and jurisdictions in a collaborative sense. Its creation of Multiagency Coordination Systems, a means of bringing together a collection of representatives from affected and involved jurisdictions and agencies; and corralling every Public Information Officer (PIO) into one of several Joint Information Centers (JICs), as part of a Joint Information System (JIS), are two examples of this theme. Although cooperation is certainly a good thing, the apparent intent is to address the real political issues inherent in any large-scale incidents (and many small-scale ones). The result is "management by committee." Basically, ICS got a D.C. makeover.

Another inherent flaw of NIMS as an incident management tool is that it builds upon only the most esoteric components of the ICS, the parts of ICS that are used the least for day-to-day emergency management activities. Multiple layers of decision making, liaison activities, and remote operating centers form the bulk of this government-sponsored disaster plan. That would be fine if NIMS were merely relegated to the bookshelf and only taken down and dusted off for periodic training and the occasional multijurisdictional disaster requiring its implementation, but experience with the ICS has shown that the opposite might occur.

Full article available at:
http://www.fireengineering.com/display_article/313283/25/none/none/BRNIS/Incident-Command-the-Washington-Way