One of the big changes since the 9/11 attacks has been the institution of the National Incident Management System (NIMS) here in the United States. A core portion of NIMS is the Incident Command System (ICS). The concept of ICS is to provide some structure to the chaos that normally errupts when responding to emergencies and disasters. The bigger the incident, the more need for some form of structure. While NIMS and ICS are now mandated by the federal government for use by state and local jurisdictions, we are still in the infancy period of implementing ICS. There are many training courses available, some of which are on-line and free.
The challenge I see is that after the training, how much is retained by the student when all of a sudden they are now in the field and faced with responding to an incident? Someone recently passed me a handy-dandy ICF Field Guide. Thumbing through it, I found it to be a condensed and accurate job aid that may prove useful for someone who has been thrust into an ICS position and is trying to remember, "What is it I'm supposed to do?" You can check out the field guide and other tools at the Informed web site.
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