NIMS in Action: A Case Study of the System’s Use and Utility
Given the intent of the National Incident Management System (NIMS) mandate to alter local and state disaster operating procedures and nationally standardize response across disasters of all types and scales throughout a wide array of agencies and organizations, it was important to study the degree to which its implementation has been successful.
Specifically, the focus of this research project was to determine how NIMS was used in a disaster situation and to identify what factors affected the system’s usefulness.
Quick Response Grant research was conducted in the aftermath of a tornado in late spring 2008. Data were gathered through interviews with state and local emergency management personnel, observation at the state and local Emergency Operations Center (EOC), the collection of local and state documentation relevant to the disaster response, and publicly available news media reports. The findings of the research are presented and the relevance of the findings for both the discipline
and field of emergency management are discussed.
See NIMS in Action: A Case Study of the System’s Use and Utility, by Jessica Jensen, Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Emergency Management, North Dakota State University, Fargo, North Dakota
Tags: emergency operations center, eoc, ICS, incident command system, National Incident Management System, Natural Hazards Center, NIMS
