EOC Tip of the Week

Vests or no vests? As the incident command system has crept into EOCs, so has the wearing of vests to delineate the various positions of people who work in the EOC. For larger organizations I've come to the conclusion that vests are a good thing. Different colored vests identify key people, provide name identification and it allows people to quickly assess who is where in a room. I recall during the Nisqually Earthquake Michael Loehr was our relatively new Operations Manager; so many people had not met him. That day he was identified as "the guy wearing a plaid shirt." Luckily there must not have been too many plaid shirts being worn that day.

Later on we had some cheaper vests and EOC management was wearing a medium blue. I added a yellow smiley face button to mine and I think I could have easily passed for a welcome to Wal-Mart employee. King County did buy more professional vests and they do add value to the functioning of an EOC

Perhaps for news conferences I might not wear one only because people make visual assessments pretty quickly, and they might wonder why is the road guard guy or Wal-Mart guy up there speaking on television.