Adding to our resource quiver, EMSI is proud to announce that we’ve posted an Incident Command System position acronym job aid to our website. This listing of positions is intended to help incident responders by providing a consolidated catalog of acronyms related to the ICS positions. It is not a …
In June 2016, the U.S. Government released the Oil/Chemical Incident Annex to support and provide hazard-specific supplemental information to the Response Federal Interagency Operational Plan (FIOP) and the Recovery FIOP. Oil and chemicals may be released from sources such as onshore and offshore oil production-related facilities, oil and chemical transportation …
Given the myriad of complexities that come into play when we are responding to an incident, it should come as no surprise that the function of a Public Information Officer (PIO) during incident response is different than that of the PIO during daily routine operations. On a day-to-day basis, the …
EMSI routinely receives questions seeking an advanced explanation of an emergency management or incident management concept. Recently we received a question regarding a Safety Officer’s “stop work” authority under ICS. This is a thought provoking question and we thought we would share the answer with our followers. If you have …
Howdy Folks! It’s a brand new day here in Crisis Commsville, and you’ve just been named Public Information Officer (PIO) of a large-scale incident. Congrats! Hopefully, your first job isn’t tearing the dust-covered shrink-wrap off that ol’ Joint Information Center (JIC) Model. Okay, now what? Let me guess … your …
Five years ago, I traveled to Japan as part of the U.S. Government’s response to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident. With March marking the five year anniversary of Fukushima, this article attempts to highlight some incident management lessons learned and considerations for nuclear and radiological incident management. This month marks …
A well-known and important tool, the Operational Planning Worksheet (ICS-215) is used by the Operations Section Chief in preparing for the next Operational Period; a less well known, but equally important tool, is the Work Analysis Matrix (ICS-234). Looking at an ICS Operational Planning “P”, your work on the ICS-215 …
This post should really be titled, “If You’re Not Collaborating With Others During a Crisis Situation, You Need to Rewrite Your Crisis Plan.” That’s a bit wordy, though. Here’s the thing about being at the center of a crisis – whether you look at it from the standpoint of your …
“BLUF.” If you’ve never seen the acronym, it means, “Bottom line, up front.” Insert it at the beginning of any piece of written communication, and you’re telling those receiving the message, “This is the most important part.” If you’re a professional communicator, it’s similar to the concept of “flagging” during …
“KA-BOOM!” happens and we launch our response. It is the ingrained nature of responders; when something happens, we react and respond to it. If set up for success and the response starts right, this initial reactionary response will lay the ground work for the next several operational periods, should the …
