Introduction
The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) require that all citizens should have emergency kits and plans in their homes. Additionally, the local emergencies managers are required to advice the people to prepare for emergencies by stocking up emergency kits and developing plans (Haddow, Bullock & Coppola, 2017). The paper will examine the components of emergency management multi-agency interoperability, communication, and infrastructure needs for multi-agency preparedness. Additionally, the paper will discuss the relationship of communication and interoperability to success in the overall emergency management and government structure.
Emergency Management Multi-agency Interoperability
Interoperability refers to the ability of various organizations to work together to effectively coordinate by communicating and exchanging information to support functions at the time of routine disasters, events, or incidents. Additionally, it refers to the ability of the reaction staff and crisis administration to work effectively in cooperation. The private and public responders’ emergency medical, firefighter, police officers work in coordination to respond to emergencies and incidents despite their location or size (Haddow, Bullock & Coppola, 2017).
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Similarly, interoperability suggests that specified crisis interchanging frameworks should be connected to the same framework used by the region for non-emergency approaches. In addition, they should adequately interface with the established national benchmarks, and allow the allocation of information throughout the administration process and across each single major player as it happens (Haddow, Bullock & Coppola, 2017).
Interoperability focuses on promoting the well-being of the public as a priority. Appropriate interoperability improves the ability of responders to communicate thereby saving time on property and lives of the people. An effective interoperability consist of different components including management and command, which are established to foster effective incident coordination and management by offering a standardized and flexible structure (Haddow, Bullock & Coppola, 2017).
Communication
Emergency communications refers to the capability of emergency responders to share information through authorized video, voice, and data to accomplish their mission. Emergency response personnel respond to incidents of different magnitude and scope on a daily basis throughout the nation. The ability of the responders to communicate in real time is crucial to creating control and command at the emergency scene, to uphold incident situational awareness, and to function generally within a wide range of incidents. However, reports have indicated that the insufficient emergency communication capabilities have a harmful impact on response and recovery efforts. This has resulted in the need for an overarching emergency communications strategy to resolve the shortfalls (Haddow, Bullock & Coppola, 2017).
Emergency communication is accomplished by developing a strategic plan that creates a national vision for emergency communications in future. Additionally, communication is achieved by making important and considerable capital investments in technological innovations that are evolving constantly and at a faster pace. These investments facilitate improvements of communication at all levels of the government. Moreover, emergency communication is accomplished through training, exercises, planning, and usage, as well as through coordination and governance. Therefore, through investing in technological innovations, good governance, and training, emergency communication can be achieved thereby resulting in an effective recovery process (Haddow, Bullock & Coppola, 2017).
Infrastructure Needs for Multi-Agency Preparedness
Emergency and disaster planning encompasses a coordinated and co-operative process of planning to correspond the critical needs with the resources available. The infrastructure and resources needed include critical infrastructure training programs that are offered by the Homeland Security Department to private and government sector partners. The DHS Resource Catalog including Tribal Resources Guide, State and Law enforcement Catalog, and Private Sector Resource Catalog. The State and Major Urban Area Fusion Centers that focuses towards gathering, analysis, and sharing of information between the federal government and the private sector partners, territorial, tribal, local, and state. The Center for Faith-Based & Neighborhood Partnerships that functions to maximize the proper engagement of faith-based and community organizations in Departmental programs. The Office of Cyber and Infrastructure Analysis offers analysis of infrastructure consequence, modeling capabilities, and decision support to private and public sector partners (Homeland Security, n.d).
Other resources include Assessment Resources consisting of Cybersecurity Evaluation Program (CSEP) conducts voluntary assessments through all the 16 critical infrastructure sectors as well as within large urban areas and state governments. In addition, Infrastructure Visualization Platform (IVP) is a tool for data collation and presentation that matches the immersive imagery with the areas of interest to establish an interactive guide for a chosen location. The Sector-Specific Resources comprises of Sector-Specific Agencies and Sector-Specific Tabletop Exercise Program. Each of these resources has been tailored towards specific needs of that particular sector (Homeland Security, n.d). Therefore, these resources and infrastructure are critical for multi-agency preparedness.
Relationship of Communication and Interoperability within the Overall Emergency Management and Government Structure
Interoperable and seamless communications are critical aspects that emergency response agencies must have at governmental levels to effectively function under a common operating picture, to sustain situation awareness, to create command and control, and to manage emergency response. Interoperability is one of the primary elements of emergency communication, which facilitates effective communication among responders in different disciplines, jurisdictions, and levels of government. On the other hand, the communication operability is an important platform for interoperability. It is crucial for emergency responders to first create a reliable communications in their own sector before interoperating with other agencies and neighboring jurisdictions (Verge et al., 2017).Therefore, communication and interoperability work together to offer emergency responders with the capacity to maintain communications in case of incident occurrence to protect property and save lives.
Conclusion
It is evident that emergency communication is very crucial in emergency management and government structure. The ability to communicate effectively in real time allows emergency responders to adequately control the emergency scene and support incident situational awareness. Therefore, communication and interoperability contributes significantly towards success in emergency department.
References
Haddow, G., Bullock, J., & Coppola, D. P. (2017). Introduction to emergency management . Butterworth-Heinemann.
Homeland Security. (n.d).Critical Infrastructure Resources. Retrieved from: https://www.dhs.gov/critical-infrastructure-resources
Varga, P., Blomstedt, F., Ferreira, L. L., Eliasson, J., Johansson, M., Delsing, J., & de Soria, I. M. (2017). Making system of systems interoperable–The core components of the arrowhead framework. Journal of Network and Computer Applications , 81 , 85-95.
