During recent weeks, tornadoes desolated regions of the Midwest, wildfires roared through the West and people living along the Gulf Coast continued cleaning up from 2005’s devastating hurricanes while bracing themselves for the start of another storm season. Meanwhile, health officials around the world kept a watchful eye on the spread of avian flu, and the arrests of people in Miami and Toronto suspected of plotting terrorist attacks against the U.S. heightened safety concerns.
The lesson that was brought to the fore by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks – and is continually reinforced by natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina – was that a system needs to be in place to coordinate swift and effective responses to catastrophes.
Beginning this month, employees in positions that could be called upon to handle a critical incident that could disrupt campus operations or threaten health and safety – such as a natural disaster or an avian flu pandemic – will begin an emergency preparedness training program. The training is part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s National Incident Management System, a set of management processes, protocols and procedures for emergency response agencies, municipalities and private-sector businesses to use in preparing for, responding to and recovering from domestic incidents.
A key component of NIMS is the Incident Command System, an on-scene protocol that was developed in the early 1970s as a means for handling wildfires in the western U.S. ICS incorporates best practices used by thousands of responders and authorities across the nation and helps responders establish an integrated organizational structure appropriate for handling an incident without being impeded by jurisdictional boundaries. The ICS helps responders address an incident by dividing emergency responses into five essential management functions: command, operations, planning, logistics, and finance and administration.
Approximately 450 to 500 UI employees – mostly deans, directors and department heads – have been identified immediately as needing to undergo the training because they could be involved in assisting with a disaster affecting campus or the surrounding area, said Kip Mecum, director of emergency planning in the Division of Public Safety.
Beginning July 18, the UI will present the first two of the six courses in the NIMS curricula established by the Department of Homeland Security. The classes will run through Aug. 22, and people who have been notified by e-mail that they need to attend training may select any of the sessions, which will be in Room 1105 of the Thomas M. Siebel Center for Computer Science.
UI police officer Todd Short, one of 16 people in the U.S. who were certified as ICS instructors by the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators in October, will teach the courses. The first two courses will be offered in one daylong session and will provide overviews of the ICS and the NIMS.
“It would be much more difficult to manage a critical incident on campus if our employees did not have the benefit of this training,” Short said. “But once they go to this training, they’ll have a good understanding of how ICS and NIMS work and how they can function within its management structure, regardless of the type of incident. Collectively, we need to know how to respond if a critical incident were to occur, and we need all our resources available to us.”
At the end of each course, participants will take an exam and will be issued a certificate verifying that they have completed the training.
Officers, telecommunicators and administrators at the UI police department have completed the initial training, as have the members of the Campus Emergency Operations Committee, a group that works with Chancellor Richard Herman to help manage critical incidents on campus.
Four additional courses are under development, and the curricula should be in place by the first of the year, Short said.
The NIMS was created by Homeland Security Presidential Directive 5, Management of Domestic Incidents, which was signed by President George W. Bush on Feb. 28, 2003.
All organizations such as the UI that receive grants, contracts or other federal funding for preparedness activities are required to adopt NIMS and ICS, train key personnel and demonstrate compliance – or substantial compliance – with the presidential directive by Sept. 30, 2006.
