San Francisco to adopt National Incident Management System

From the San Francisco Office of Emergency Services

September 27, 2005

At the request of Annemarie Conroy, Director of the Office of Emergency Services and Homeland Security, Supervisor Fiona Ma today introduced a resolution to make San Francisco compliant with the National Incident Management System (NIMS).

"In the wake of events that occurred in the Gulf Coast, and the lack of coordination between local, state and federal officials, San Francisco is taking the necessary steps to adopt the NIMS," said Annemarie Conroy.

"San Francisco has already coordinated its disaster planning and training with other levels of government, and implementing this system will only make it stronger."

NIMS is a nationwide system for federal, state, local and tribal governments to work together to prevent, prepare for, and respond to emergency incidents of any nature or size. Specifically, NIMS creates:

• Standardized organizational structures, processes and procedures;
• Standards for planning, training and exercising, and personnel qualification standards;
• Equipment acquisition and certification standards;
• Interoperable communications processes, procedures and systems;
• Unified information management systems; and
• Supporting technologies - voice and data communications systems, information systems, data display systems and specialized technologies.

The system is based in large part upon California's Standard Emergency Management System, which has been in place for nearly a decade. In order to receive federal preparedness grants for fiscal year 2007, local governments will be required to adopt NIMS.

"When the National Incident Management System is adopted and used nationwide, it will form a standardized and unified framework for incident management within which government at all levels can work together effectively," said Supervisor Fiona Ma. "I'm proud that San Francisco is taking the right steps to ensure we have a solid system in place in case of a catastrophic event."

The City's Emergency Operations Plan, which was updated this year for the first time in almost ten years, already conforms to NIMS.

Visit www.72hours.org

####