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Exploring the dynamics
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B. Local Emergency Management Capacity and
Collaboration
Local EM capacity enhancement and maintenance are
essential and important duties for local emergency managers.
One interviewee indicated that local governments’ metropolitan
status, geographic location, population size, federal and state
grants, local EM resources, EM trainings, and local EM agency
size can influence their level of EM capacity, which changes the
way local governments respond to emergencies and why they
engage in various collaborations (ID5). For example, a small
rural county with a lower EM capacity has to ask for additional
resources from neighboring counties or from the state to
respond to an incident, which a large urban county with higher
EM capacity can possibly handle by itself. A larger urban county
with a strong EM capacity can extend its collaboration by
providing physical resources to assist neighboring small counties,
playing the role of consultant to offer EM-related advice to local
businesses, or speaking out as the local voice to state
government and further participating in state EM planning.
C. National Incident Management System
(NIMS) and Collaboration
According to FEMA, the NIMS is a national standard that
p
rovides a systematic, proactive approach to guide
departments and agencies at all levels of government,
nongovernmental organizations, and the private sector
to work seamlessly to prevent, protect against, respond
to, recover from, and mitigate the effects of incidents,
regardless of cause, size, location, or complexity, in
order to reduce the loss of life and property and harm
to the environment. (Federal Emergency Management
Agency, 2008)