Incident Management Background and Historical Problem Areas
Incident Management Background and Historical Problem Areas : "The Incident Command System (ICS) was developed in the 1970s following a series of catastrophic fires in California's urban interface. Property damage ran into the millions, and many people died or were injured. Response problems could rarely be attributed to lack of resources or failure of tactics. Surprisingly, studies found that response problems were far more likely to result from inadequate management than from any other single reason. Weaknesses in incident management were often due to: (1) Lack of accountability, including unclear chains of command and supervision. (2) Poor communication due to both inefficient uses of available communications systems and conflicting codes and terminology. (3) Lack of an orderly, systematic planning process. (4) No common, flexible, pre-designed management structure that enabled commanders to delegate responsibilities and manage workloads efficiently. (5) No predefined methods to integrate inter agency requirements into the management structure and planning process effectively. Emergency managers learned that the existing management structures, frequently unique to each agency, did not scale or adjust to dealing with massive mutual aid responses involving dozens of distinct agencies. As a result, the Incident Command System (ICS) was collaboratively developed to provide a consistent, integrated framework for the management of all incidents from small incidents to large, multi-agency emergencies". (Zuber, Type 3 All-hazard Incident Management Teams, circa 2006-2008)
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