Abstract
The emergency manager is an important cog in the success of an emergency incident. An emergency manager should, therefore, work with the incident command center to coordinate all the activities that are involved in a rescue operation. The Incident Command Center has many positions, all of which have a specific role to play in an emergency incident. These positions are chief of the operations, chief of planning, chief of logistics, safety officer, chief finance and administration, emergency operations section position, information officer, and incident commander. The emergency manager has a role to play and influence in all these positions.
Introduction
Every emergency incident should have an emergency manager. Equally important is the incident command center, which has many positions. These positions include chief of the operations, chief of planning, chief of logistics, safety officer, chief finance and administration, emergency operations section position, information officer, and incident commander. The work of an emergency manager relates to all the above incident command center positions.
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Chief of the Operations
The work of an emergency manager has a direct relationship with that of the chief of operations. The primary role of the chief of operations is to direct and coordinate all tactical incident operations. It is, however, prudent to note that in an emergency incident, many teams are involved in the rescue operations activities. Each of these different teams has its chief of operations, though the name and title may differ according to their team and structure. These teams also have their plans. The emergency manager is, therefore, tasked with coordinating the efforts of the different chief of operations and ensure that they have synergy and work towards the achievement of the same goals (Fagel, 2016) . The emergency manager also ensures that the various chief of operations from various units do not duplicate their work or operate on cross-purpose of each other.
Chief of Planning
For the emergency manager, working closely with the chief of planning ensures the provisions of the requisite resources. Alexander (2015) argues that th e emergency manager should ensure that all the plans put in place should have the requisite resources. These resources are both financial and human resources. The emergency manager must assess the human resource needs concerning potential emergency disasters and incidents that might occur. In case any of these disasters occur, then the necessary personnel will be in place. He or she also mobilize financial resources needed if emergency incidents occur. The emergency manager then bequeaths these resources to the chief of planning, which comes up with plans of how to optimize the utilization of these resources in an emergency incident.
Chief of Logistics
The emergency manager will liaise with the chief of logistics in coordinating the use and sharing of resources. If an emergency incident takes place, all the necessary resources and equipment will need to be supplied to the location immediately (Xiong, Shen, Dong, Hu, Fan, & Zhu, 2016) . They also need necessary supplies such as food, water, shelter, among others. It is, therefore, the job of the emergency manager to liaise and coordinate with the chief of logistics in ensuring the distribution of these resources and equipment as and when they are needed. Additionally, the emergency manager also oversees and may alter the logistics plans as developed by the chief of logistics to ensure optimization and non-wastage of resources.
Safety Officer
Being the team leader, the emergency manager is ultimately responsible for the safety of the personnel in an emergency incident. The safety officer mostly works on an advisory role and liaises with the emergency manager while on the field. The emergency manager’s role is, therefore, a more pro-active one, where he or she develops training programs for emergency response employees (Fagel, 2016) . These training programs are supposed to give employees proper procedures they should follow in the event of an emergency incident. Additionally, the safety training programs educate the employees on the safe use of all emergency equipment, hence avoiding unnecessary accidents. The safety manager then implements these and develops emergent strategies of safety with the emergency manager, to respond to changing situations in the course of an emergency.
Liaison Officer
Emergency incidents, especially those that are big in scale and effect, demand a multidimensional approach, where various teams, organizations, and agencies, pull their efforts together. The liaison officer coordinates all these efforts by the different players. However, these other teams, agencies, and organizations do not chip in to help without any instigation. It is, therefore, the role of the emergency manager to develop relationships and networks with other countries, state, and federal agencies: both public and private (Kapucu, & Hu, 2016) . These relationships are important because it ensures that in case of an emergency, it can be easy to summon the help of these other agencies, banking on the relationship and networks developed by the emergency manager over time. When their help is guaranteed, it then falls on the liaison officer to coordinate the efforts of these agencies to work towards one unified goal.
The Chief Finance and Administration
For the chief finance and administration officer to do their job well, funds need to be present. Nikolai, Treboniak, Heller, & Madey (2016) posit that the job of the emergency manager and that of the chief finance and administration section are therefore interrelated. The former ensures that there is a consistent supply of funds for the latter to plan and distribute for emergency incidents. The emergency manager should, therefore, apply for funds from the federal government agencies and grants from any other source that is willing and able. After the provision of the funds, it then falls on the chief of finance and administration to use it prudently, ensuring cost-effectiveness, avoiding wastage, and demonstrating value for money. He or she will then make a financial report to the emergency manager who will justify the use of funds to the federal agencies and those who gave grants.
Emergency Operations Center Officer
The emergency operations center officer will work closely with the emergency manager. According to Fagel (2016), the emergency manager is responsible for the whole emergency operations. However, in the course of an emergency, there may be some unforeseen circumstances such as the fire of emergency being responses to getting out of hand. When this happens, the emergency manager will give the go-ahead for the setting up of an emergency operations center. The officer in charge at the emergency operations center will make decisions on the next course of action in consultation with the emergency manager. These decisions involve training, sourcing for additional resources, alternative and emerging emergency plans, and so on. The emergency manager must have an input in all these decisions made at the emergency operations Centre.
Information Officer
Information is an important part of the success of an emergency incident. The information officer is, therefore, an essential cog of the emergency team. However, the emergency manager approves this information. The emergency manager is responsible for designing policies and the information on it that should be disseminated ( Robinson, Walton, Hellewell, & Bishop, 2019 ). He or she, therefore, gives the information officer the information and manner on which to draft. The information manager then uses their prowess to put in the best way understood and passes the intended message. With the information officer gathering information from the rest of the sections and emergency responders, he or she then passes this information to the emergency manager for action.
Incident Commander
The incident commander coordinates and liaises with the other general staff and other activities that may be deemed necessary. All these include the power to either expand or shrink the structure and duties of the incident commander, depending upon the incident. According to Flin & Arbuthnot (2017), the emergency manager develops and evaluates emergency plans. The next course of action after these design, development, and evaluation of emergency development plans is to make recommendations to the incident commander. These recommendations, therefore, touch on the structure and scope of the roles and other positions that either need to be created or eliminated by the incident commander. These recommendations are made depending on the incident; hence, the emergency manager takes a situational approach. The incident manager should implement these recommendations from the emergency manager since the structure is key to the success of an emergency incident.
Conclusion
In any emergency incident, the role of the emergency manager is core for success levels to increase. The emergency manager is responsible for the success of the rescue operations of an emergency incident. It, therefore, means that he or she has a role to play in every stage, starting from the sourcing of plans, networking, and emergency plan designing, until the debriefing session after the emergency incident ends. The demonstration of all these is in the description of the role which the emergency manager has concerning the emergency command center positions describe above.
References
Alexander, D. E. (2015). Disaster and emergency planning for preparedness, response, and recovery. Oxford University Press.
Fagel, M. J. (2016). Principles of emergency management and emergency operations centers (EOC) . CRC press.
Flin, R., & Arbuthnot, K. (2017). Incident Command: Tales from the hot seat . Routledge.
Kapucu, N., & Hu, Q. (2016). Understanding the multiplexity of collaborative emergency management networks. The American Review of Public Administration , 46 (4), 399-417.
Nikolai, C. M., Treboniak, C., Heller, P., & Madey, G. (2016). About Emergency Managers and Their Tools: What Emergency Managers Want from a Business Perspective. International Journal of Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (IJISCRAM) , 8 (4), 1-16.
Robinson, C. C., Walton, B. M., Hellewell, C. T., & Bishop, N. O. (2019). U.S. Patent No. 10,292,036 . Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Xiong, G., Shen, D., Dong, X., Hu, B., Fan, D., & Zhu, F. (2016). Parallel transportation management and control system for subways. IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems , 18 (7), 1974-1979.
