Another Tom Symonds item below. The bold is mine. It does seem that unified command is a difficult thing to achieve. People talk it, but when you get below the surface in most cases it is "co-located" command, which is better than the typical bickering that happens when there is no communications going on at an incident site between the various first responders.
Interestingly they use the term alliance. I've often called what we need is "coalition warfare" right here in the USA. The coalition being the disparate jurisdictions and disciplines that need to work together in disasters.
Los Angeles/Long Beach UASI - Alliance Team: An Emergency Planning Partnership; Jim Gordon, LAPD; John Jacobsen, LAFD; Bobby Wyche, LASD; Quentin Frazier, LAEM; Alicia Welch, LAFD.
The LA planning Alliance is a multi-jurisdictional, multi-discipline strategic planning group comprised of 26 members from both the public and private sectors. [Note: this was one of the IJs I evaluated in the 2006 Peer Review and was the highest rated IJ of any IJ submitted to DHS.] The Alliance, serving as the UASI's strategic think tank, is basically the greater LA/LB UASI Operational Area's unified command for strategic planning and other strategic applications. [I noted quite a bit of discussion about "unified command" and "co-located command". It seems most jurisdictions operate with "co-located commands". True unification comes in the pre-incident planning phase: multi-discipline, multi-jurisdictional, public-private planning teams.] Operating under the principle of "talk as one - work as one," the Alliance was created to develop inter-agency, multi-discipline, multi-jurisdiction planning and cooperation; develop strategic processes for emergency planners, incident managers, and first responders; develop and deliver comprehensive workshops, table-top exercises and training involving both public and private sector partners. It facilitates the strategic application, dissemination, and management of information, personnel, resources to address critical incidents, to include the National Planning Scenarios, and has developed comprehensive process guides and provided training and exercise programs throughout the greater LA/LB UASI operational area. Currently, the Alliance is focusing on: Mass Evacuation Planning; Mass Care and Sheltering; Reception; Recovery.
