Disaster Preparedness - The Practice of Cloud System Administration - page 324

15.5.1 How It Works: Public Safety Arena
Whenapublicsafetyincidentbegins,thefirstorderofbusinessistogetorganized,starting
by figuring out who is going to be in charge. In an incident, the first qualified responder to
arrive automatically becomes the Incident Commander (IC).
An ICS team is made up of the Incident Commander and the subcommand systems
of Operations, Logistics, Planning/Status, and Administration/Finance, as shown in Figure
15.1 . A Public Information Officer is also appointed to deal with communication beyond
the response team (internal and external) about the incident. A Liaison Officer is the
primary contact for outside agencies, such as third-party vendors. A Safety Officer monit-
ors safety conditions.
Figure 15.1: The basic ICS organizational structure
All incidents have a Command section (the management) and most have an Operations
section, which directly provides emergency services such as putting out the fire or provid-
ing medical attention. The management structure is a strict hierarchy. In an emergency
there is no time for the vagaries and inefficiency of matrix management.
When the IC arrives, he or she is often alone and assumes all roles. As more people ar-
rive, the IC delegates roles as needed. As new people arrive, they check in with Admin/
Finance (if it exists) for bookkeeping purposes, but then the IC assigns them to a function.
The IC has the global view needed to best determine how to allocate new resources.
The IC role does not transfer to anyone just because they have a higher rank or because
a different department arrives. For example, a police chief does not automatically trump
a police officer, and a fire fighter does not automatically trump a paramedic. Transfer of
controlisexplicit,implemented bythecurrentIChandingcontroltosomeoneelsewhoex-
plicitly accepts the role. Role handoffs are disruptive and are done only when needed.
Teams stay small. A team size of three to five people is considered optimal. If a sub-
command gains seven direct reports, the team will be split in two when the next person is
added.