National Incident Management System

It is important to know that NIMS stands for National Incident Management System which is a structured framework which is used national wide by both the governmental and nongovernmental organizations in responding to natural disasters. Preparedness is one it components. Preparedness includes the crucial steps that are undertaken in forecasting the future and taking the initiative to ensure that future is secure (capola 2001). In our practical example it is inevitable for Greensburg having been hit by tornadoes once that totally destroyed come up with measure that will that the people are ready and well armed when such an event occurs in the future. One of the measures of preparedness includes training community so they may learn effective alert measures and how they could keep themselves safe. The staff also needs training so that they can effectively know how to manage incidents.

It is important that the designation of the incident commander be determined at the state or national level. Almost each and every single day communities do respond to very many emergencies effectively at the local levels. But there are some incidents that require a collaborative approach so as to effectively respond to the incidents. Thus local levels may not be able to mange some complicated incident such as tornadoes. The collaborative approaches include the state as whole and it multiple jurisdictions. They may also include the nongovernmental organizations, the private sectors and lastly the combination of disciplines or specialties. The management with NIMS ensures that people work together when the communities and the nation need them most. Thus at all times the NIMS is supposed to work at the state level and not to limited to the local community to deal with a disaster such as tornadoes( Mathew 2003).

The NIMS will always include the mitigating and recover efforts. This ensures that if the community suffers such a disaster there is a way to repair the damages that so that the scars caused by the incident are erasable. This for example includes putting up funds for the special programs such as building back the building that were destroyed. There are also businesses which may need to be put back. The combined efforts of the various organizations may be put together to foresee to this.

Loosing lives is so far the largest damage that tornadoes may cause and thus the most important long term safety need for any community is ensuring that the lives of the people are preserved (Capola 2001). This is by establishing weather stations which are well armed with necessary equipment that will undertake research at various periods to foretell a coming tornado so as to alert the people. The stations by using the modern technologies can also try to find out the cause of the previous tornado and if such causes can be prevented.

The best practices such as preparedness and use of combined efforts in responding to a disaster have proved to be very effective and could be used very effectively in response to the Greensburg event.

References

Capola,D.(2001) Introduction to international disaster management. United States. University Press.

Mathew. G(2003) Importance of disaster preparedness. California. Nova publishers.