Incident Comand System... a short primer

[nadinbrzezinski]

so people understand the basics of this system. Oh and on purpose I will keep it to a SIMPLE response, not this mess... but one that requires some of the slots.

First off it was developed after a major fire where people were killed because well, you know, communications was not there, and everybody was trying to do the same thing...

Now what the system does it that it divides up responsibilities so you have a coordinated effort, and you keep some sort of order and command and control. Any of you who served in a Headquarters Company, replace some titles and it is very close actually.

So the first person you need to know and meet is the INCIDENT COMMANDER. This person is at the top of the chart, and his or her job is to delegate and to coordinate. He or she is not supposed to get on hands dirty, but to have an overall view of the mess and be able to take command level decisions and tell his or her people under him, per area of responsibility to get it done. Of course this person's ass is always on the line for political reasons. He or she also has the job to do overall scene assessment... aka bird eye view.

In a car crash, the simplest implementation of the ICS, you have the following people under him or her.

Triage Officer: Yes this person gets to check on patients, and decides WHO gets treated first, transported first et al. As I used to call it, this person plays god. He directs all medical personnel on scene and tells crews who or what to treat first or last, and has to reassess patients at all times...until they leave the scene.

Communications Officer: This person's whole job is to man the radio. He or she essentially becomes on site dispatch and tells everybody where to go and from where. He also is in charge of telling dispatch how many units are going to what hospital and an ETA for those units.

Staging Officer: This person essentially has control of where you park your ambulances and other rescue gear, This person works hand in hand with the Communications Officer.

Now if I have a slightly larger incident I will also have a LOGISTICS OFFICER, who's job is to find me the actual gear I might need, like extra trauma kits or oxygen tanks.

Now this is the lowest level response... where the ICS will come into play and actually the simplest organizational charts for this system. But this is the best way for people to get the ICS... in this case... there are way more slots in that chart, as they also include Public Information, logistics, Science. Money... ground response, I could go on.

But I hope that this very simple view at the ICS will help you understand what is going on. And by the way if anybody wants to send this to Tweety, go for it. He has no clue...

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. I should have gone into the WE ARE ALL GONNA DIE mode

sorry....

Offering information is like not popular and shit.

So WE ARE ALL GONNA DIE and NOBODY IS DOING A FUCKING THING!!!

:sarcasm: of course.

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. Ok let's try once again