Download or read book Incident Management Team Activation Protocols: Developing Activation Protocols for the New York City Fire Department's Incident Management Te written by Stephen Marsar and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 113 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The Fire Department of New York City's Incident Management Team (FDNY IMT) is viewed nationally as a critical resource for all-risk-hazard large-scale disaster response within the United States. The FDNY IMT's reputation was built upon its successful management of such devastating events as Hurricane Katrina (2005) and Hurricane Gustav (2008) in New Orleans, Louisiana, and during a 500,000-acre East Zone Complex wildland fire near McCall, Idaho, in 2007. Despite those national achievements, the research problem exists that the FDNY has not established protocols for activating its IMT during large-scale emergencies within New York City. The omission of such protocols has resulted in poor multi-agency coordination and the delayed establishment of an effective emergency management organizational structure. The purpose of this research was to produce IMT activation protocols for the FDNY by investigating the activation methods of other all-risk-hazard IMTs. Action research was employed to answer the following questions: (a) what general mechanisms are used nationally to activate IMTs? (b) What states have IMT activation protocols within the United States? (c) What are the IMT protocols for those states that have them? And (d) what specific activation mechanisms are used by other all-risk-hazard IMTs in the urban environment? Focused problem and purpose statements, and relevant research questions were developed prior to the literature review. Extensive research gathered information from IMTs within the 50 U.S. states; Washington, D.C.; Puerto Rico; and Guam. Topic experts were also identified and interviewed. The results found that few U.S. IMTs have local activation protocols. The recommendations--based on the research--resulted in specific protocols for the FDNY IMT response to building collapses, explosions, hazardous materials, and airplane and railroad crashes; as well as the education of chief officers on the management benefits of the team.".