Continuity of Operations (COOP) is a United States federal government initiative, required by U.S. Presidential Policy Directive 40 (PPD-40), to ensure that agencies are able to continue performance of essential functions under a broad range of circumstances. PPD-40 specifies certain requirements for continuity plan development, including the requirement that all federal executive branch departments and agencies develop an integrated, overlapping continuity capability, that supports the eight National Essential Functions (NEFs) described in the document.
The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), known as the Defense Communications Agency (DCA) until 1991, is a United States Department of Defense (DoD) combat support agency composed of military, federal civilians, and contractors. DISA provides information technology (IT) and communications support to the President, Vice President, Secretary of Defense, the military services, the combatant commands, and any individual or system contributing to the defense of the United States.
Business continuity may be defined as "the capability of an organization to continue the delivery of products or services at pre-defined acceptable levels following a disruptive incident", and business continuity planning is the process of creating systems of prevention and recovery to deal with potential threats to a company. In addition to prevention, the goal is to enable ongoing operations before and during execution of disaster recovery. Business continuity is the intended outcome of proper execution of both business continuity planning and disaster recovery.
The Incident Command System (ICS) is a standardized approach to the command, control, and coordination of emergency response providing a common hierarchy within which responders from multiple agencies can be effective.
The United States Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM) is one of the eleven unified combatant commands in the United States Department of Defense. Headquartered at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska, USSTRATCOM is responsible for strategic nuclear deterrence, global strike, and operating the Defense Department's Global Information Grid. It also provides a host of capabilities to support the other combatant commands, including integrated missile defense; and global command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR). This command exists to give "national leadership a unified resource for greater understanding of specific threats around the world and the means to respond to those threats rapidly".
The National Incident Management System (NIMS) is a standardized approach to incident management developed by the United States Department of Homeland Security. The program was established in March 2004, in response to Homeland Security Presidential Directive-5, issued by President George W. Bush. It is intended to facilitate coordination between all responders. The system has been revised once, in December 2008. NIMS is the common framework that integrates a wide range of capabilities to help achieve objectives.
Disaster response refers to the actions taken directly before, during or in the immediate aftermath of a disaster. The objective is to save lives, ensure health and safety and to meet the subsistence needs of the people affected. This includes warning/evacuation, search and rescue, providing immediate assistance, assessing damage, continuing assistance and the immediate restoration or construction of infrastructure. The aim of emergency response is to provide immediate assistance to maintain life, improve health and support the morale of the affected population. Such assistance may range from providing specific but limited aid, such as assisting refugees with transport, temporary shelter, and food to establishing semi-permanent settlements in camps and other locations. It also may involve initial repairs to damage or diversion to infrastructure.
New York City Emergency Management (NYCEM) was originally formed in 1996 as part of the Mayor's Office under Rudolph W. Giuliani. By a vote of city residents in 2001 it became an independent agency, headed by the commissioner of emergency management. In 2006 the office was reorganized under the deputy mayor for administration by Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
A command center is any place that is used to provide centralized command for some purpose.
The New Zealand Co-ordinated Incident Management System (CIMS) is New Zealand's system for managing the response to an incident involving multiple responding agencies. Its developers based the system on California's Incident Command System (ICS) - developed in the 1970s - and on other countries' adaptations of ICS, such as Australia's Australasian Inter-Service Incident Management System (AIIMS).
The National Disaster Medical System (NDMS) is a federally coordinated disaster medical system and partnership of the United States Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS), Homeland Security (DHS), Defense (DOD), and Veterans Affairs (VA). The purpose of the NDMS is to support State, local, Tribal and Territorial authorities following disasters and emergencies by supplementing health and medical systems and response capabilities. NDMS would also support the military and the Department of Veterans Affairs health care systems in caring for combat casualties, should requirements exceed their capacity. The NDMS was established in 1984.
An incident is an event that could lead to loss of, or disruption to, an organization's operations, services or functions. Incident management (IcM) is a term describing the activities of an organization to identify, analyze, and correct hazards to prevent a future re-occurrence. These incidents within a structured organization are normally dealt with by either an incident response team (IRT), an incident management team (IMT), or Incident Command System (ICS). Without effective incident management, an incident can disrupt business operations, information security, IT systems, employees, customers, or other vital business functions.
In the U.S., critical infrastructure protection (CIP) is a concept that relates to the preparedness and response to serious incidents that involve the critical infrastructure of a region or the nation. The American Presidential directive PDD-63 of May 1998 set up a national program of "Critical Infrastructure Protection". In 2014 the NIST Cybersecurity Framework was published after further presidential directives.
Joint Task Force-National Capital Region (JTF-NCR), formerly known as Joint Force Headquarters-National Capital Region (JFHQ-NCR), is directly responsible for ceremonial missions and the homeland security and defense of what is called the National Capital Region, which includes the Washington D.C. area as well as surrounding counties in Virginia and Maryland. Primarily made up of joint military units within the National Capital Region, the JTF-NCR assists federal and local civilian agencies and disaster response teams in the event that the capital area's security is or possibly could be breached by acts of terrorism. Officially activated on September 22, 2004, as JFHQ-NCR, the JTF-NCR is part of United States Northern Command.
In the United States, the hospital incident command system (HICS) is an incident command system (ICS) designed for hospitals and intended for use in both emergency and non-emergency situations. It provides hospitals of all sizes with tools needed to advance their emergency preparedness and response capability—both individually and as members of the broader response community.
The Oklahoma Office of Homeland Security (OKOHS) is an agency of State of Oklahoma that is responsible for reducing the State's vulnerability to acts of terrorism and for minimizing and recovering the damage caused by terrorist attacks. OKOHS is a division of the Oklahoma Department of Public Safety.
The United States National Response Framework (NRF) is part of the National Strategy for Homeland Security that presents the guiding principles enabling all levels of domestic response partners to prepare for and provide a unified national response to disasters and emergencies. Building on the existing National Incident Management System (NIMS) as well as Incident Command System (ICS) standardization, the NRF's coordinating structures are always in effect for implementation at any level and at any time for local, state, and national emergency or disaster response.
The National Program Office (NPO) was an office of the United States Government, established to ensure continuity of government in the event of a national disaster. The NPO was established by a secret executive order signed on 14 September 1982 by President Ronald Reagan during the Cold War in preparation for a nuclear war, presumably with the Soviet Union.
Emergency management software is the software used by local, state and federal emergency management personnel to deal with a wide range of disasters and can take many forms. For example, training software such as simulators are often used to help prepare first responders, word processors can keep form templates handy for printing and analytical software can be used to perform post-hoc examinations of the data captured during an incident. All of these systems are interrelated, as the results of an after-incident analysis can then be used to program training software to better prepare for a similar situation in the future. Crisis Information Management Software (CIMS) is the software found in emergency management operation centers (EOC) that supports the management of crisis information and the corresponding response by public safety agencies.
Primary, alternate, contingency and emergency (PACE) is a methodology used to build a communication plan. The method requires the author to determine the different stakeholders or parties that need to communicate and then determine, if possible, the best four forms of communication between each of those parties. PACE also designates the order in which an element will move through available communications systems until contact can be established with the desired distant element(s). Ideally, each method will be completely separate and independent of the other systems of communication. For each method, the receiver must first sense which one the sender is using and then respond.
