National Incident Management System (NIMS)

National Incident Management System (NIMS)

Introduction’

September 11 attacks, also called 9/11 attacks, series of airline hijackings and suicide attacks committed in 2001 by 19 militants associated with the Islamic extremist group Al-Qaeda against targets in the United States, the deadliest terrorist attacks on American soil in U.S. history. The attacks against New York City and Washington, D.C., caused extensive death and destruction and triggered an enormous U.S. effort to combat terrorism. Some 2,750 people were killed in New York, 184 at the Pentagon, and 40 in Pennsylvania, where one of the hijacked planes crashed after the passengers attempted to retake the plane. Included in the total in New York City were more than 400 police officers and firefighters who had lost their lives after rushing to the scene and into the towers. Rescue operations began almost immediately as the country, and the world sought to come to grips with the enormity of the losses. 9/11 was a wakeup call for various responding departments in the United States, especially the fire service and law enforcement. This is because the two departments lost a lot of their people as they were responding to the incident. This led to the creation of the NIMS that significantly

National Incident Management System (NIMS)

NIMS is the first-ever standardized approach to incident management and response. Developed by the Department of Homeland Security and released in March 2004, it established a uniform set of processes and procedures that emergency responders at all levels of government could use to conduct response operations. It was developed as a response to the 9/11 attacks as the event proved that it was necessary to have a national approach that could help responders across the United States to speak a common language. NIMS aimed at improving some of the areas that had caused responding departments such as law enforcement and firefighters to respond and manage the critical incident effectively.

Although the original task force’s early investigation into multi-agency operations focused on equipment and department emergency operations policies, it became apparent to the task force and policy board members that the primary issues actually revolved around the diverse missions of the involved agencies and the divergent nomenclature and organizational structures used by the agencies for command of emergency incidents. In other words, it became clear that efforts toward multi-agency operations coordination would not be effective unless the project’s purpose was broadened to encompass all hazards that various responding departments faced, as well as the missions they were assigned. It was further determined that to function in an all-hazards environment, the command system had to be simple and easily scalable, from a single resource to large, multi-agency operations.

Organization

Since 9/11, law enforcement leaders have undertaken various measures that have changed the structures of agencies on how they respond to incidents, especially terrorist attacks. Agencies have restructured their operations in order to detect better, penetrate, and dismantle terrorist enterprises as part of its larger cultural shift to a threat-based, intelligence-driven, national security organization. As part of this strategic shift, law enforcement agencies have also overhauled their response operations, expanded intelligence capabilities, modernized its business practices and technologies, and improved coordination with its partners. Changes in internal structures, such as the creation of different responding units, have also increased over the years. Larger metropolitan and state police agencies especially have continued to embrace the approach as a way of having diverse responders who can respond to various incidents. However, changes in organizational processes and operations are still far more universal and typically involve an increased collaboration among police departments, specifically greater openness toward information sharing.

The events of 9/11 revealed the effects of terror attacks on buildings are neither quantifiable nor predictable. They are limited only by the expertise and resources available to those bent on destruction. Sometime after the 9/11 attacks, the fire service department began to try to understand what it meant to have lost 343 firefighters and what went wrong for the department. Fifteen years after the attacks, succession planning has gained popularity in the fire service, which was a lesson learned from the 9/11 attacks. The fire service is not only focused on the needs of today but also putting efforts to teach, train, educate, and mentor young people who are willing to join the profession. The fire service has also seen an increase in the number of firefighters as organizations continue to initiate strategies that can encourage people to join the profession. The need to have enough firefighters who can be able to respond to an incident effectively has never been more emphasized before the 9/11 attacks. Also, hazardous materials programs in fire services started including weapons of mass destruction modules. Also, the concepts of coordination and interoperability have become second nature in planning documents of fire services.

Training

After the 9/11 attacks, the training in law enforcement and the fire department changed significantly. Law enforcement and fire service leaders focused on a comprehensive incident management approach that involved training that focused on a continuous cycle of planning, organizing, equipping, exercising, evaluating, and taking corrective actions. Training delivery in the departments became more decentralized than ever. Training in the entry-level focused on providing foundational knowledge to help nonsupervisory incident personnel understand where they fit in the overall incident structure. The mid-level training in the departments in the departments became focused on providing additional background on external incident management systems for personnel responsible for establishing the initial incident command or for those preparing for a future supervisory role. The senior-level training became more concentrated on providing leaders with enhanced knowledge and increased comfort in using NIMS structures and processes in the concerned organizations.

Another training change in law enforcement and fire services after the 9/11 attacks was that police and fire staff were provided with the opportunity to learn about the structure of fellow agencies. Although telecommunicators used to understand the command structure of the agencies they worked with prior attacks, their responders did not. If a battalion chief needs to talk to a police supervisor, does he ask for the commander or the sergeant? If a fire captain and a police sergeant are both on the scene, who is in ranking person in charge? What is the dispatch supervisor called? What is the difference between the Lead Dispatcher and the Acting Watch Commander? Why are there four people on a fire truck, but only one or two in a patrol car? Leaders in fire services and law enforcement agencies started adopting a training approach that assisted responders in their organizations to answer such questions so that they can be able to work collaboratively with other departments considered as first responders.

Equipment

Equipment also improved after the 9/11 attacks. Law enforcement and fire services started adopting radios with multi-frequency systems to allow responders from the same agencies to talk among themselves and also agencies among agencies. Post radios, about the size of a suitcase, can be brought to the scene to boost radio signals when firefighters are in high-rise buildings, subways, or anywhere else radio transmissions may have trouble getting through concrete. Even vehicles have improved since 9/11. One challenge for responders at a major event before the 9/11 attacks was the need to coordinate a response while juggling different radios to talk to those in different departments or agencies. Law enforcement and fire services started installing mobile command centers and field communication kits, creating a new gateway to connect different radio bands over IP connections. This audio bridge allows the commander on the scene to direct the use of a laptop to create a radio patch right from the vehicle. This means that no matter what frequency the responders are using, they can communicate as if they were on the same one.

The use of supporting technologies have also become essential equipment for law enforcement and fire services after the 9/11 attacks. Automatic vehicle location (AVL) systems, for example, have become common in responder vehicles across the nation, providing dispatch with the real-time location of units. Finally, emergency buttons in cars and portable radios have also become essential equipment for the concerned departments when responding to events. The supportive technologies alert telecommunicators and fellow responders in an organization when units are in distress when responding to critical incidents. The equipment is often designed to allow overrides of all other radio traffic to the person who needs help, thereby assisting in ensuring support is available in case a situation gets out of hand.

Conclusion

The 9/11 attacks had a significant impact on how law enforcement and fire services responded and viewed critical incidents, especially terrorist attacks. The event changed the structure of organizations, equipment being used, and training provided to personnel in the fire service and law enforcement in the United States. Although the event led to the death of many people, including responders from law enforcement and fire services, the improvement and changes witnessed in law enforcement and fire service are a result of it. Based on the changes that have been embraced by the two departments, they are now in a better position to prevent and effectively respond to critical incidents, which has mostly been facilitated by the development and adoption of NIMS.