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Thread: FEMA CERT, NIMS, ICS, LOL, EMI, BBQ, HTTP acronyms

  1. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by TGS View Post
    We trained up at CDP before hitting FL for Irma at CDP last year.

    Some of you may remember it as Ft McClellan. Which makes FEMA's decision to conduct hazmat/chem-bio-nuke training there logical.

    By the way, the bar serves pretty good beer, at a great price.
    Last edited by Drang; 09-20-2018 at 10:53 PM.
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  2. #12
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    Quote Originally Posted by TGS View Post
    CERT might be a good start for you or even a perfect fit, but check out FEMA's Center for Domestic Preparedness and the associated Consortium. Most (all?) of the residential courses they offer are superlative quality, but I don't know if CERT members are eligible to attend any. They're free to attend using grants from DHS....students even get paid per diem, a hotel, and get a free rental car all as if you were a federal employee attending training. All you have to do is find a course you want to do and sign up.
    Thanks! I'll pass this along to our training coordinator as well.
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  3. #13
    Site Supporter Notorious E.O.C.'s Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Drang View Post
    I am summoned! For which, major props to Drang for remembering our last interaction from a year and a half ago.

    Relevant credentials for this thread: current emergency manager, local CERT instructor, Certified Emergency Manager through International Association of Emergency Managers. Been doing this about five years on a full-time paid basis, with another five years of prior volunteer service as a CERT team member and emergency operations center command staff minion. Having said that - I actually have very little to add to this thread, as others have already weighed in very effectively.

    NIMS/ICS

    Drang pretty much nails the essence of NIMS/ICS. My take: NIMS is the overall framework of concepts and principles for dealing with incidents of all styles and sizes. ICS is the federally-recommended organizational structure for professional responders at incident scenes and their immediate support apparatus.

    Within the last year, FEMA has rolled out a series of updates to the NIMS/ICS curricula based on feedback from practitioners on how incidents actually work versus how technical writers in an SAIC documentation sweatshop think incidents work. The independent study online courses are the first to receive overhauls; that work is ongoing. Currently, IS-100 (ICS introduction), IS-700 (NIMS introduction), and IS-800 (National Response Framework introduction) are posted. Based on conversations with colleagues at FEMA HQ, IS-200 (practical ICS for small incidents) should be forthcoming Real Soon Now.

    The IS courses have some useful tidbits but they are, by and large, prefatory pencil-whipping exercises. The real meat is in the classroom delivery of ICS-300. If possible, take it when a bunch of fire service guys are in the classroom; the fire service is where ICS originated and most larger departments practice it every day. Caveat: neither ICS-300 nor its follow-on, ICS-400, have yet been updated to the new standards. I haven't seen a timeline for those updates lately.

    CERT

    RoyGBiv has excellent insights.

    CERT uses a FEMA-developed curriculum, implemented locally. The quality of training and teams varies widely based on jurisdiction. I have seen some places that use their CERT volunteers for everything from wildlands SAR to traffic control to responder support on multi-alarm fire scenes, providing extensive supplemental training beyond the basic elements in the FEMA manuals. I have seen other places that never activate their teams because they haven't had major disasters or because their public safety leadership doesn't like or trust or value volunteers. Your experience in CERT will depend on where your local program sits on that spectrum.

    The core curriculum is:

    • basic personal preparedness (very little you can't get from your search engine of choice)
    • disaster medical operations (triage, immediate lifesaving interventions, basic packaging)
    • fire suppression (don't try to extinguish anything bigger than you)
    • HAZMAT awareness (don't touch, smell, or lick)
    • terrorism/WMD awareness (the above goes double)
    • disaster psychology (dealing with people on the worst nights of their lives)
    • light SAR (structural assessment, interior search, the "X" markings you see in post-hurricane footage)
    • team organization (minimal ICS)

    I suspect a good percentage of this forum's population already knows a lot of this stuff, but a refresher never hurts, and you might be able to bring some enlightenment to your classmates.

    In my eyes, the major benefits of CERT on a national level are that it provides a solid foundation for personal preparedness without the crazy-eyed frothing of the extreme prepper fringe, and that it gives some degree of confidence and empowerment to citizens who otherwise have zero clue about the public safety profession or their own personal safety.

    Other Options

    Drang and TGS name-checked EMI (Emergency Management Institute), CDP (Center for Domestic Preparedness), and TEEX (Texas A&M Engineering Extension Service). EMI and CDP are federally-run programs that offer resident courses - respectively, in Anniston, AL and Emmitsburg, MD. Just about everyone of consequence I've met in emergency management and the fire service has gone through several courses at one or both of those sites. I'm finally heading out to EMI next month and am pretty jazzed about it.

    TEEX offers local course deliveries under federal contract, including the best emergency operations center class I've had. Check their site to see if anything of interest is coming near you.

    Also, check your state EM agency's web site for training schedules. Each state agency should have a training officer whose job it is to coordinate training offerings for local volunteers and paid responders.

  4. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by Condition Write View Post
    I am summoned! For which, major props to Drang for remembering our last interaction from a year and a half ago.
    I don't recall now what I was searching for, but I stumbled on that thread by accident. Also, another I started about emergency preparedness in general, which I also forgot about.

    Quote Originally Posted by Condition Write View Post
    ...The real meat is in the classroom delivery of ICS-300. If possible, take it when a bunch of fire service guys are in the classroom; the fire service is where ICS originated and most larger departments practice it every day.
    Almost everyone in my IS300 class was either a firefighter or a LEO. It was awesome. I was taking as many notes from the war stories being shared as from the actual instruction.

    Bigger picture, NIMS/ICS makes a lot more sense once you take '300.
    Last edited by Drang; 09-21-2018 at 08:51 PM. Reason: spelloring...
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  5. #15
    Site Supporter Notorious E.O.C.'s Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Drang View Post
    Almost everyone in my IS300 class was either a firefighter or a LEO. It was awesome. I was taking as many notes from the war stories being shared as from the actual instruction.
    Yup. The phrase "steaming the highway clean of a slick of frozen chicken guts" appears prominently in my notes. And on the list of incidents to which I never want to respond.

    Bigger picture, NIMS/ICS makes a lot more sense once you take '300.
    Oh, absolutely. Mea culpa for not stating that explicitly. ICS-300 is really the entry-level ICS class, in my opinion. The IS courses just provide a level-set on terminology. Even for folks who are not going to be in an incident command or command/general staff role, -300 provides the context that is utterly lacking in the IS series.

    With regards to my own box on the org chart, the EOC (emergency operations center), there has long been a deficiency in training: because there isn't a good standard for EOC classes, people throw ICS at the problem, and then you get a bunch of guys in the EOC who don't understand that they are supporting the field operations rather than running them. That, too, is supposed to be changing with the rework of various curricula. I am told to expect a total rebuild of G-775 to be the EOC equivalent of ICS-300, with G-191 getting a slightly lesser level of revision and remaining focused on the links between the field ICS structure and the "back office" EOC structure. As of April, they were due out in October, but we all know how federal projects run.

    Ahem. Anyway, @Peally - while it is not directly relevant to personal preparedness, many jurisdictions are also hurting for competent and reliable EOC staffers. That is how I got my own start in emergency management. It's a good way to make high-level contacts in your local public safety community, as well as an excellent opportunity to see how all of the moving parts work together in large incidents (or major entertainment and athletic events).

  6. #16
    @RoyGBiv has mentioned ham radio a couple of times; that may be a good entree into emergency preparedness/response, depending on how your local government agencies handle things. Some members of my club took IS300 at EMI in Emmetsburg, MD, a few years back, arranged by my municipal emergency management department.
    American Radio Relay League.
    Find an Amateur Radio License Class in Your Area
    Classes are generally conducted for the price of a license, ~$15.00. They are usually conducted by clubs: Search for ARRL Affiliated Clubs.
    Not all clubs are ARRL Affiliates, and they may not all be active in an ARES role (Amateur Radio Emergency Services.) Your local government may have a Memorandum of Understanding with a club to provides Emergency Communications support (that's ARES) or it may have it's own team under it's Emergency Manager (who will probably be a Deputy Fire Chief, although in some jurisdictions it's a LEO. Rarely, Emergency Management will be a stand alone office.)
    Recovering Gun Store Commando. My Blog: The Clue Meter
    “It doesn’t matter what the problem is, the solution is always for us to give the government more money and power, while we eat less meat.”
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  7. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by Drang View Post
    Your local government may have a Memorandum of Understanding with a club to provides Emergency Communications support (that's ARES) or it may have it's own team under it's Emergency Manager (who will probably be a Deputy Fire Chief, although in some jurisdictions it's a LEO. Rarely, Emergency Management will be a stand alone office.)
    Should have added, the above organization would be considered RACES, Radio Amateur Communications Emergency Services. Another example of a case where the desire to make the acronym seem cool that they had to torture the language to do it.

    RACES has a lot of advantages for the served agency, but it can also be so specialized that it needs to beg for support, i.e., recruiting members, or licensing/upgrade classes. Pretty much demands active membership in and support from local clubs.

    Other organizations active in the amateur radio/emcomm field include the Salvation Army and the Church of Jesus Christ of Later Day Saints.
    Recovering Gun Store Commando. My Blog: The Clue Meter
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  8. #18
    Site Supporter Notorious E.O.C.'s Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Drang View Post
    Your local government may have a Memorandum of Understanding with a club to provides Emergency Communications support (that's ARES) or it may have it's own team under it's Emergency Manager (who will probably be a Deputy Fire Chief, although in some jurisdictions it's a LEO. Rarely, Emergency Management will be a stand alone office.)
    Man, the Pacific Northwest is weird.

    I think that's a regional thing most common in the PacNW and Mountain West. Most of the emergency managers I know in the southeast have independent agencies, often coequal with police, fire/EMS, corrections, and E911 in the government hierarchy, and I see this reflected nationally in job postings on the IAEM site. My own employment inside a law enforcement agency is anecdotally rare outside the higher education subsector of EM. While I have known some cops and firefighters who are very good emergency management practitioners, EM is definitely a separate discipline.
    Last edited by Notorious E.O.C.; 09-23-2018 at 07:40 AM. Reason: words before coffee bad

  9. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by Condition Write View Post
    ...CERT uses a FEMA-developed curriculum, implemented locally. The quality of training and teams varies widely based on jurisdiction. I have seen some places that use their CERT volunteers for everything from wildlands SAR to traffic control to responder support on multi-alarm fire scenes, providing extensive supplemental training beyond the basic elements in the FEMA manuals. I have seen other places that never activate their teams because they haven't had major disasters or because their public safety leadership doesn't like or trust or value volunteers. Your experience in CERT will depend on where your local program sits on that spectrum....
    Also, check your state EM agency's web site for training schedules. Each state agency should have a training officer whose job it is to coordinate training offerings for local volunteers and paid responders.
    Something I just remembered: "No self-deployment" has long been the rule. One of the local Emergency Managers had a story about how, when he was deployed to Hurricane Katrina, some guy drove up in his Ram 3500 with a trailer with an air boat on it, and announced that he was there and what should he do?
    He had bought the truck, trailer and boat and driven to Louisiana, reading the manual for the boat on the way...
    He was thanked for trying, and invited to go away.

    Not sure that that particular guy would have been welcome today, but I am beginning to see courses offered for "Managing Spontaneous Volunteers", so the general disdain for folk show "just show up and want to help" may be reducing. I know there has been a debate on the subject in the amateur radio/EmComm community for a while now, shall we turn an experienced ham, just because he is more interested in contesting than in ARES? Guess what, a contester may well have better skills when it comes to making and maintaining contact under poor operating conditions than the guy who got his tech license so he could do CERT...
    Last edited by Drang; 09-24-2018 at 04:37 AM.
    Recovering Gun Store Commando. My Blog: The Clue Meter
    “It doesn’t matter what the problem is, the solution is always for us to give the government more money and power, while we eat less meat.”
    Glenn Reynolds

  10. #20
    Member Peally's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Condition Write View Post

    Ahem. Anyway, @Peally - while it is not directly relevant to personal preparedness, many jurisdictions are also hurting for competent and reliable EOC staffers. That is how I got my own start in emergency management. It's a good way to make high-level contacts in your local public safety community, as well as an excellent opportunity to see how all of the moving parts work together in large incidents (or major entertainment and athletic events).
    I was actually initially turned in the ICS (more specifically EOC, really) direction when I brought the whole CERT thing up in conversation. While CERT seems volunteer oriented on a "if you're around get your ass over here right now and help" level, based on my reading EOC seems more like a pseudo-career that's still evolving into something recognized as a standard field one can choose to work in.

    You'll have to further school me, but isn't general incident command the responsibility of responding EMTs/LEOs/whoever has "educational seniority/qualifications"? Where would a volunteer or even professional EOC bro fit into that scheme? Are they first responders in the traditional sense (where EOC duties are tacked on to their normal job responsibilities) or is it a specialized profession where an incident runs long enough that a big 'ol command van shows up with staff aimed only at situation management? Is that something traditionally done on the side or is it pretty much a full time gig? (basically I want to do this sort of thing just when I can, I still gotta make my current salary at my current job for now to eat and pay the bills).

    I'm pretty out of the loop with how emergency management actually goes down. CERT makes sense to me since it's just a semi-standardized organization that's used as the local government sees fit, but immediate incident/event management in my uneducated mind (likely incorrectly) boils down to "whoever has the most bars on their shoulder runs the show until someone with more bars shows up".

    On a side note thanks for the replies everyone, seriously. Not only for me, but for anyone else looking to dip their toes into this sort of thing it really lays it all out in terms far easier to understand than reading arbitrary FEMA class descriptions.
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