Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
The response operations coordinator should be very knowledgeable of the plant
and its response plan and organization. In small plants, this position may coincide
with the emergency director function. In other cases, the plant manager may
assume the emergency director function, mainly because of the responsibilities
associated with this role and his or her overall responsibility for the safety of
the facility. The response operations coordinator may perform the bulk of the
coordination activities.
Incident Response Commander (IRC, Field Operations Coordinator)
The incident response commander or field operations coordinator is the highest
ranking officer at the scene of an emergency event. The command post from
which that person directs the emergency response should be located as close as
possible to the emergency field operations. The main responsibilities associated
with this position are as follows:
Direction and coordination of all field operations
•
Assessment of severity of the incident
•
Recommendation of on-site protective actions
•
Implementation of response actions at the scene of the event
•
Coordination
of
these
actions
with
the
emergency
preparedness
co-
•
ordinator
The incident response commander must also be very familiar with the facility
and have solid technical expertise.
Incident Response Team
These are the group of persons directly involved, and prepared for, an emer-
gency event. Typically, there are two types of teams: specific member teams and
volunteer or ad-hoc teams.
Specific member teams are trained and are on standby all the time during
scheduled hours. They are normally paid by the state or local municipality
or agency and therefore outside the facility operations. Sometimes, plants are
large enough to support a specific member team. They are usually organized
by rank and have a clearly defined chain of command and response struc-
ture. Examples are SWAT and municipal fire department HAZMAT response
teams.
Volunteer or ad-hoc teams are composed of willing volunteers who get spe-
cial training focused on emergency response. These teams undergo specialized
training for various aspects of the response and are prepared to fulfill the roles
required by the specific situation. They normally have unrelated jobs at the facil-
ity, but in an emergency respond as a member of the team. Example would be
a member of the engineering department trained in confined space emergency
response.
