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Florida City and County EM directors generally view NIMS as
a useful and important system/model to make people use the
same rules, structures, procedures to quickly respond to a
disaster (ID6, ID8, ID11, ID13, & ID14). People at different
places can use the same language to communicate, which helps
increase efficiency and decrease misunderstandings during an
emergency. Everyone can be on the same page. However, NIMS
still faces criticism when assessed from the local perspective. For
example, NIMS is criticized as a top-down system which is full
of paper-work and involves a tedious procedure. It is also hard
to use because FEMA keeps changing or revising the content of
NIMS. NIMS is criticized as a system that formalizes a lot of the
relationships that do not need to be formalized. Therefore, local
governments lose their flexibility to respond to incidents. A
county EM director argued that NIMS is a tool for the federal
government to intervene in local governments’ EM activities,
which undermines the principle that all disasters are local (ID4).
D. Hazard Recognition, Disaster Severity, and
Collaboration
In the theoretical framework, disaster magnitude is listed
as an external factor leading to an increase in collaboration in
both vertical and horizontal contexts. Several county EM
directors highlighted that hazard recognition and disaster
severity influence a local government’s attitude towards collabo-
ration. Two large county EM directors mentioned the following:
I think probably the greatest motivating factor for
collaboration is when they recognize that hazard exists
and could impact them. Agencies we traditionally
didn’t work with prior to the 2004 hurricane season,
we’re getting calls all the time after that . . . . Now some
of those people know
“
Okay, if you live in Florida, you
have a hurricane problem.
”
That goes across citizens,
business and industry, to government leaders. (ID3-1)