Institute for Crisis, Disaster, and Risk Management

Crisis and Emergency Management

Newsletter Website
return to mainpage

December  2003                                                    Volume 5 - Number 3

Related Sites:

Disaster Management in Washington DC...

Summary of the Initial National Response Plan

By Kerry R. Hinds

The Initial National Response Plan is divided into five sections and two annexes. These include Section I -Purpose, Section II-Background, Section III- Concept, Section IV- Modifications To Existing Federal Domestic Incident Management And Emergency Response Plans And Doctrine, and Section V- Requirements.

Section I establishes the fundamental purpose and implementation of the document as a result of the HSPD-5 which calls for the management of domestic incidents in the United States of America. The document sets out the authorities, roles and responsibilities of the Secretary of Homeland Security and all agencies that fall under the jurisdiction his office. The document maintains that domestic incidents may include terrorist attacks, major disasters and other emergencies and will encompass how the nation manages such events. Thus the document will act as the foremost authority as it relates to the management of the aforementioned events.

Section II constitutes that the plan will be an integration of the current family of Federal domestic prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery plans into a single all-discipline, all hazards plan. It will incorporate the National Incident Management System, which will provide a structured mechanism for standard incident management processes, protocols and procedures.

Section III of the plan identifies the HSPD-5 as the guiding policy document, which is intended to unify domestic incident management under the Secretary of Homeland Security. As a direct result, this new plan will ensure that the Federal Response Plan, U.S Government Interagency Domestic Terrorism Concept of Operations Plan, Federal Radiological Emergency Response Plan, Mass Migration Emergency Plan, and the National Oil and Hazardous Substance Pollution Contingency Plans are synchronized until they can be synthesized into one document. It also recognizes that although a number of modifications will result to reflect the mandate of HSPD-5 and the “new players” as it relates to domestic incident management existent governing Federal incident management and emergency response processes procedures and protocols remain in effect.

Section IV outlines the modifications to existing federal domestic incident management and emergency response plans and doctrine. Subsection A introduces the concept of the 24-hour Homeland Security Operations Centre and justifies its role as the primary national level hub for operational communications and information pertaining to domestic incident management. This section further outlines the HSOC relationship with other federal mechanisms for terrorism related threat analysis and warning and its interaction with other operation centers inorder to fulfil this function. The composition and organizational structure of the HSOC is also outlined. Subsection B identifies the composition, roles and responsibilities of the Interagency Incident Management Group whose overall mandate is to facilitate national level domestic incident management and coordination. Subsection C and D describes the roles and responsibilities of the Assistant to the President for the Homeland Security and the Principal Federal Official respectively. Subsection E sets out the framework for a Joint Field Office describing its composition.

Section V of this document outlines the requirements of the various stakeholders namely the federal departments and agencies, the Secretary of Homeland Security, the state governments and the regional structures.

Appended to the document are two annexes, Annex A lists the agencies that will provide staffing to the HSOC and Annex B lists the Interagency Incident Management Group composition.