ICS

ICS, or the incident command system is system of communication during disaster/incidents.  In other words, this is the chain of information and the order in which people are informed about events.  This is something that was taken much more serious during a series of fires in California in the 1970’s. 

It was determined that the fire was so devastating, not because of lack of manpower or resources, but from lack of communication.  That being said, of course today we have a much easier way of communicating.  Everyone has mobile phones, emails, etc.  So today communication is much easier and much more efficient.  Regardless, communication still plays just as big of a rule, or maybe even a bigger role now, in emergencies.  The amount of time it takes for emergency responders to respond to an emergency can often be the difference between life and death.   An example of were lack of communication cost lives was in 9/11.  Some lack of communication is always expected.  You cannot expect all of New York City to be aware of a disaster as soon as it happens.  However, many people lost there life’s simply because they did not know what was happening.  There are stories of people gathering up their belongings in the towers and never coming out because of the time they wasted.  Also people in the surrounding areas were not necessarily instantly aware of what was taking place.  If the chain of command in the towers was improved it could have saved life.  We see a similar scenario in other tragedies like Hurricane Katrina.  Some people were just never told to evacuate.  Because of this reason, it is estimated that many people lost their life’s.  Many people were in fact told to leave, and refused because they did not fully understand the magnitude of the situation.  ICS is used on many different scales.  Whether it is in private business or the United States government.  There are many intricacies to the ICS.   Including long and short term planning.  In large-scale tragedies it could take an unforeseen amount of time to get everything cleaned up.  Hurricane Katrina took years and it is still not completely cleaned up. 

The ICS can include grotesque procedures, including those telling how to deal with a massive amount of fatalities and what to do with the bodies.  Unfortunately this is an inevitable part of tragedies.  Procedures like this are crucial to deal with the scenarios as effectively as possible and save as many life’s as possible.  However in a mass chaos there are many unforeseen events that can disrupt the planed ICS.  No matter how much planning and preparation goes into an ICS there will always be some form of confusion.  But that’s why so much time and effort is goes into preventing disasters.  In an occupational setting, that is why we have safety regulations.  Massive disasters can occur as result of negligence for safety.  There are countless chemicals, equipment, and compressed gases that can very easily cause a large scale disaster.  For this reason, ICS and its contributing standards are extremely important.