Training for Disasters

Training, Accreditation, and Readiness

As a condition for receiving federal funding, the federal government requires all local communities to adopt, and subsequently conduct, training on the National Incident Management System (NIMS), which is a planning and incident command system with training requirements determined by individual disaster operations roles to include entry-level first responders and disaster workers, first-line supervisors, middle management, and command or general staff. NIMS training is designed to create awareness and enhance skills among participants, as well as provide them with the knowledge, skills, and ability to manage disaster training programs, and education on how to implement the incident management system.

Dependent upon where an individual's disaster operations role falls, they may be required to achieve compliance in either the awareness, operations, supervisory, or command-based level of NIMS training. Compliance often involves the successful completion of a number of independent study and discussion-based courses related to NIMS and the federal Incident Command System (ICS).

For an emergency management organization to successfully achieve accreditation, emergency managers must be able to demonstrate their disaster training programs are not only structured, but also emphasize disaster operations knowledge, skills, and abilities. The Emergency Management Accreditation Program (EMAP), developed in cooperation with several national organizations, requires documented participation in incident management system training to include operational awareness topics for federal, state, and local governments, as well as first responders and nonprofit organizations. Participation in the program is voluntary, but documentation on course objectives, participation, and learning outcomes is necessary. Additional information such as personnel emergency management training development records, certification processes, course transcripts, and the personal qualifications of instructors or trainers are essential to demonstrate a structured disaster training program.

Disaster exercises are used to validate training and strengthen the emergency management system. For example, responders to both the October 17, 1989, Loma Prieta earthquake along the San Francisco Bay area and the July 19, 1989, United Airlines 232 crash in Sioux City, Iowa, both attributed success in saving lives to recently identified performance gaps and corrective measures taken following disaster training and exercises that were conducted just prior to those events.

The effectiveness of training and emergency plans are evaluated through a variety of discussion and operations-based exercises. While exercises test and validate the effectiveness of disaster planning, they can also provide a platform for increasing awareness of the community's emergency operations plan or to assess the emergency response system based on measurable goals and objectives. Exercises not only provide a means for assessing the retention of previous training initiatives, but also provide an opportunity for responders to practice their training in a nonthreatening environment.

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