Introduction to National Incident Management System

Introduction to National Incident Management System

Introduction

National incident management system (NIMS) is an all-inclusive and methodical approach to the incident management on a national scale. It can be used and applied for any incident or disaster at all the levels (Walsh, 2012). This paper aims to discuss the levels of operations and challenges in the nationwide implementation of the NIMS.

5 levels of operation of the nationwide implementation of NIMS

The five levels of operation in the implementation of NIMS are preparedness, communications and information management, resource management, command and management, ongoing management and maintenance (FEMA, 2008).

Challenge for each of the five level of implementation

In the phase of preparedness for nationwide implementation of NIMS, there is a need of achieving collaborative partnerships in a number of elements. Achieving collaborative partnerships among different governmental level including state, federal and local levels, organizations which are nongovernmental and the organizations belonging to private sector is the biggest challenge in the stage of preparedness (FEMA, 2008).

In the level of communication and information management, the aim is to build a proper communication mechanism which allows all the personnel from different division and sectors to have access to unified information and permits their communication with each other. The most important challenge in this level is the uniformity of the information nationwide. The challenge is to make identical, up to date and valid information available to all the parties across the nation (FEMA, 2008).

In the third stage of resource management, there is a requirement to manage all kinds of necessary resources including the personnel, supplies, teams, equipments and other facilities before, during and after the incident takes place. The challenge in this level of NIMS nationwide implementation is to arrange all the required resources in the appropriate quantities and managing those resources. The challenge is to arrange the resources and make them available to the needed people at the right time (FEMA, 2008).

The fourth level of nationwide implementation of NIMS entails the whole management and coordination of the incident. This includes all the activities that lead to smooth operations during the incident. These activities include obtaining, organizing and distributing the resources to locations of the incident as well as sharing the information related to the incident site and position with the public. The principal challenge in this level is to match the urgency of the situation. This entails managing the incident and the related activities ...