As a result of the September 11th terrorist attacks, the Homeland Security Act of 2002 delegated the formation of the National Incident Management System. This aimed to make it the standard system for emergency management response processes at every government level irrespective of the type of incident or magnitude. NIMS’s intent, comprising of its significant element, the Incident Command System, is to offer a reliable structure for incident management (Walsh et al., 2010). Moreover, it does not select the agency, organization or jurisdiction involved. In more than ten years since the centralized directive, each state administration has formally implemented NIMS through executive orders or other strategy mechanisms. For instance, most agencies around the country, police, hospitals, and private sector have worked to integrate NIMS theories and philosophies into their operation methods, with variable success levels.
How NIMS fits in Homeland Security Apparatuses
The NIMS command in the Homeland Security Act of 2002 was augmented in 2003 through Homeland Security Presidential Directive-5. This emphasized the usage of NIMS as the country’s solitary, all-inclusive incident management structure. The Incident Command System (ICS) is essential to NIMS as a structure for handling processes at or close to an emergency scene. It offers responders a method of coordinating emergency efforts through a conjoint, flexible, and accessible command framework within the department. It organizes responses in four key fragments. They include operations, planning, logistics, and finance or administration. As the measure of reaction enlarges, responders can form sub-units of the four essential segments, either by practical specialty. For instance, fire containment operative group and disaster health operative group or by geographical segment termed as divisions.
The NIMS mechanisms are adjustable to any condition, from regular, local occurrences to incidences that require the initiation of federal mutual aid. This flexibility is vital for NIMS to be pertinent across the comprehensive range of probable events, consisting of those that need multiagency, multijurisdictional coordination. Flexibility in the NIMS structure expedites the scalability of emergency management in Homeland security and incident response happenings. It also offers exclusive application in specific parts around the country.
NIMS incorporates current best routines into a steady, national, systematic method to incident management pertinent to the Homeland security apparatus in every hazardous framework (Jensen and Youngs,2015). Various mechanisms initiate the systems method. They consist of preparedness communications and information management, resource management, command and management, and ongoing management and maintenance. NIMS offers the apparatuses for disaster control and their allied corporation to function co-operatively by presenting the essential apparatuses to improve alertness. Preparedness is attained and preserved through a constant cycle of organizing, assessing, and taking corrective action. Consistent preparation efforts amongst every person involved in the management of disasters guarantee harmonization in times of crisis.
Conclusion
As incident significances are established, requirements are acknowledged, and resources are ordered. Resource control structures are employed in processing the resource needs. In the early incident phase, most of the resources demanded are tackled locally or through communal aid arrangements. As an occurrence develops in magnitude or intricacy, or if it begins on a significant level, additional resources may have to meet the resource requirements. In instances of the struggle for crucial sources, MACS can highlight and organize the allocation of resources and dissemination. This is in consideration of resource accessibility, requirements of other occurrences, and other restraints and contemplations.
