When government and non-governmental (NGO) agencies adopt the National Incident Management System (NIMS), they agree to send their personnel to the various NIMS Incident Command System (ICS) courses. These include IS 100, 200, 300, and 400.
These courses are great to ensure that each person responding to an incident can operate within the ICS system and understand their position and the lines of authority, as well as, reporting requirements.
While some professions, such as the fire service, use of the ICS system on a daily basis, many do not.
The need to operate above current level
One of the tenements of ICS is that positions are filled with the most qualified person rather than a particular rank within an organization. Additionally, many response organizations do not have redundancy at the upper levels of the organization, as these personnel are often 40-hour personnel that do not have direct response requirements.
These two facts often require personnel to train and operate within the ICS system outside of their normal level in the organization. This is an overall good issue, as we can have well trained personnel that can step into the positions if needed.
However, many of the concepts are not retained due to lack of use. This fact compounds in areas of the Midwest, which have statistically less large-scale disasters.
Not used on a daily basis
While large-scale disasters require the collaboration of numerous government and NGO organizations, many of the organizations involved do not utilize ICS as part of their everyday operations.
While remembering the basic ICS structure is relatively easy for a disaster worker who will have limited supervisory responsibility, many organizations will need to function at an emergency operations center (EOC) or serve in the upper portions of the ICS organization. This will require remembering the numerous forms that make up an IAP or the coordination structures that derive a multi-agency coordinating group that we learned long enough for the test in ICS 400.
Based on these realities, I proclaim it is time to enact an ICS refresher requirement to remain NIMS compliant.
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