Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
National
Incident Management
System (NIMS)
Effective contingency plans for a diverse variety of events can be developed by individuals who have no contact with one another. Yet, those well-developed contingency plans will have certain things in common. Similarly, a generic plan can be developed and a number of contingency plans for diverse applications can be developed from the generic plan. We offer examples of both on this web site. Examples of potential disaster situations are listed on the Federal Emergency Management (FEMA) website. In addition, a section for kids provides information on how to make a simple emergency kit and plan.
Because communication is an absolute necessity and one of the main reasons why response plans fail, certain terminology has been developed for use by respondents using contingency plans for very large events where several organizations must work together. This terminology is taught in courses available from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) under the National Incident Emergency Management Training and National Emergency Institute as continuing education classes online. A second reason why plans fail is that individuals (organizations) don’t step forward because individuals don’t know what they are permitted to do or what other organizations are permitted to do or even can do. An effort to minimize failure because of these two limitations has necessitated building a structure for how different organizations are to work together when an event is really big or crosses jurisdictions and it is necessary for several organizations to work together. Like the terminology, the structure is both a blessing and a curse because it requires responders to learn it. If they don’t, it’s one more stumbling block in the response process. The National Incident Emergency Management web site addresses this.
Finally, contingency (response) plans can fail because people have not practiced their skills often enough to do them well (as second nature). Because of this, table top exercises and exercises in real time have been developed during which people can either describe their actions or actually carry them out while not under the stress of a real incident. Such practice is no more or less important than the flight training or boat crew program training that members of the Auxiliary are both familiar with and used to practicing as currency maintenance.