Emergency Management Role

[38ffems]

I am a long time lurker but am getting back into CAP because I live in a town with career fire, no volunteer, and closest volunteer stations are way out.  However, I live a half mile from airport with a CAP unit so I joined up.  Really enjoy it but see a lot of potential areas where we could be active and are not.    Currently I work for state EM/HS and serve as Dep. Operations Chief or Dep. Log Chief.  We have a representatives from nearly every major agency and organization in our EOC during activation except for CAP.  There doesn't appear to be a CAP government liaison track.  Am I wrong on this?  I think this would be a very helpful position which could serve on emergency planning committees and other similar government emergency planning and response work groups.  Another area I see opportunities is with state and local emergency management.  I often see local EOC's without enough people to fill out positions.  I think CAP could really help in this area by creating type V incident management teams or simply helping fill out EOC positions.  It would really help get units prepared to response to large scale CAP operations such as the Sandy response and would REALLY help out local towns who could use the personnel.  Curious if this has been done in other wings. 

[Eclipse]

Every wing has a legislative squadron charged with government relations - it is the "999" unit and there should be
at least one person to act as a liaison.

Wings with a relationship with their EMA will have EOC seats, though whether they are ever manned, and by whom, is many times based
on the "winds of change", etc.  There are also the non-trivial issue of logistics, meaning that the people the wing charges to have those jobs
live nowhere near the EOC, and therefore are never there short of Armageddon (which means Armageddon with an AFAM #).

I would suggest that you reach out to your Wing's Emergency Services Officer and discuss this with him, he is likely interested in the relationship,
if not already pursuing it.

County-level response and relationships would be the responsibility of the Group Commander in that area.   Considering that CAP, as a whole, tends to be
more invested and practiced at the ICS then your average local LEA or FD, the suggestion that we provide ICS augmentation has been a topic of conversation
more recently.

[SARDOC]

I've also been curious as to the expansion of Civil Air Patrol's Emergency Management capabilities.  Has any wing tried to establish an Incident Management Team or have members join a Local one?

[Mitchell 1969]

  Considering that CAP, as a whole, tends to be
more invested and practiced at the ICS then your average local LEA or FD, the suggestion that we provide ICS augmentation has been a topic of conversation
more recently.

Whoa! That's a pretty broad statement - are you talking nationwide, or just where you live?  Back where I come from, LE and Fire walk, talk, breathe ICS.  Meanwhile, I'm still puzzled by the CAP use of "Incident Commander" in a way that is oft times inconsistent with ICS.

[JeffDG]

I've also been curious as to the expansion of Civil Air Patrol's Emergency Management capabilities.  Has any wing tried to establish an Incident Management Team or have members join a Local one?

We've certified a few folks as local EMA augmentees, so they can go in an help manage an incident in the event they need the staff.

I think it's an area worth pursuing.

[LTC Don]

I think it's an area worth pursuing.

It's not just an 'area' that's worth pursuing, it's actually Federal Law that we be active in "providing the facilities to assist in meeting local and national emergencies", whatever they may be.  CAP needs to be doing much, much more in employing all the other thousands of members outside of our aviation community to fulfill ground support roles during a disaster.

Some states are fortunate enough to have strong, active state relationships.  Others, not so much. If Vermont does not have an official state relationship, then there's some issues there that need to be worked out.

As good as we have it here in North Carolina, it's a hard line to tow since we have so many members still in the UDF and aircraft SAR mindset of the pre SARSAT 121.5 days.

When you see pics like this coming out of places like Colorado, it tends to make volunteers like us feel pretty inconsequential. Taking pictures from the air for FEMA is great, but when your in the mud helping people desperate for help, that's what is remembered.  That's why I pay dues every year.
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151727319939965.1073741832.78922439964&type=1

CAP talks the talk on ICS, but is hardly competent to walk the walk.  We have a long way to go when working multi-agency DR.  The way we implement ICS during our little simple occasional UDF searches is hardly comparable.

One of the major things we are doing with our State EM Logistics Section (ESF-7), is training our members to augment our state EM logistics personnel during an activation.  Our members receive specific training and are called "Logistics Liaison Team" members.  They are trained to work alongside the state people, but more importantly, they are trained to deploy into the counties to assist with setting up commodity warehousing operations during a disaster. It's been a really big deal for us to participate in this way. Additionally, our LLT personnel also not only work at the existing state maintained warehouses, but are able to set up a temporary warehousing site anywhere in the state with a laptop and Internet access.

Does Vermont use the WebEOC software package?

What fed into the beginning the LLT program, was that we partnered with the Logistics Section back in 2010 to become a primary FEMA Points of Distribution asset, replacing the National Guard.  NG is still 'on the list', but further down.  So, for the last three years, we've been traveling the state, training CAP, and more recently local EM and CERT personnel the FEMA IS-26 course which takes one day of training.

Our state EM also has a CERT coordinator who works closely with CitizenCorps.  We are working closely with that office to develop CAP as a statewide CERT resource, able to deploy anywhere in the state to augment existing CERT or be a standalone CERT strike team.

The NC Dept of Agriculture recently approached CAP about helping to set up 'AgERT' (Agricultural Emergency Response Team) to help expand their program of providing ground based assistance in the rural agricultural communities.  Several other states are looking very closely at this program. This program revolves primarily around assisting the Forestry Service with clearing roads, re-setting fencing, locating livestock, clearing storm debris from farmlands, etc.

There are many, many opportunities for CAP to assist our state and local communities in many ways, it just takes members who have the time and are willing to make the commitment to follow through, and members willing to stop drinking Kool-Aid from 20 years ago.

[Eclipse]

  Considering that CAP, as a whole, tends to be
more invested and practiced at the ICS then your average local LEA or FD, the suggestion that we provide ICS augmentation has been a topic of conversation
more recently.

Whoa! That's a pretty broad statement - are you talking nationwide, or just where you live?  Back where I come from, LE and Fire walk, talk, breathe ICS.  Meanwhile, I'm still puzzled by the CAP use of "Incident Commander" in a way that is oft times inconsistent with ICS.

CAP talks the talk on ICS, but is hardly competent to walk the walk.  We have a long way to go when working multi-agency DR.  The way we implement ICS during our little simple occasional UDF searches is hardly comparable.

I can't speak nationwide, only the areas I've seen or dealt with, and in those areas, it's very uneven.

It gets better every year, but the level of ICS knowledge, and more important experience, is generally in direct proportion to the
size of the department or agency and their exposure to large incidents.

I've been in CAP for 14 years, and we've never done anything >but< ICS. The terminology has changed a bit, which standard we're complying with
is tweaked, but essentially it's been the same, and it's all we've done for the effective memory of the organization.

What we've seen is that most of the local municipalities are involved in ICS on a "need it for a grant level" moving into the "Holey smokes
we just had this massive incident and weren't ready to deal with...etc., etc., agency".  Day to day they manage things on the tactical
level, and rarely move into anything formal on action plans.  FDs have always been better at this then PDs, but get them in to an ICS class
and it is hard to get them out of tactics and into objectives and resources, etc.  As the landscape has gotten more complicated, and the
number of incidents grows, more and more smaller agencies are getting up to speed, but even in those cases, they don't always use
it day-to-day.  I've had discussions that ranged from "since #### we've opened an IAP for anything that involves more then two units" to
"Yeah, we took those classes, I think Jim has the books..."

I don't know where all this "kool aid" and other comments about CAP not doing things properly comes from.  Apparently there are bad actors
and prima donnas all over the place.  I've met plenty of members who need...er..."more training"...but the system CAP employs is fully compliant
with NIMS, and plenty flexible to accommodate expanding and evolving incidents.

Yes, we have our own forms and terminology, so do other agencies.  If a form or a term for our resource is actually an impediment to using our
professionalized, insured, and in many cases fully-funded resources, well, perhaps you should rethink your strategy.

Our regulations require we fully supervise our folks, that's a given, however that doesn't preclude us from providing resources in whatever way
is needed and necessary, and in whatever way we can fit into the structure.  Our "IC" becomes an AL, or part of the UC, no biggie.   The GBD
can sit in with whomever is managing ground assets, and frankly, the odds are they won't have an air boss on anything less then a forest fire
or major evac, but if so, our AOBD can sit next to theirs.  Not really an issue.  In those cases our people move from straegic to tactical and
get the job done.  It's not like other agencies don't have team leads, managers, union bosses, and all manner of politics and inertia of their
own to deal with. 

I'm sure it's happened, but I have never once seen a CAP IC pull an AL Haig on anyone (as is the urban legend both inside and outside CAP).  What I have seen,
on a number of occasions, is a county sheriff or local police chief in over his skis request that a CAP IC step in and manage the incident for him.

As you say, maybe NCWG is lucky in this regard, but my wing, and region, do a heck of a lot more then "simple UDF".

When you see pics like this coming out of places like Colorado, it tends to make volunteers like us feel pretty inconsequential. Taking pictures from the air for FEMA is great, but when your in the mud helping people desperate for help, that's what is remembered.

Those photographs may well be critical in getting boots on the ground where they are needed.  They will also be used to help insure people get the insurance benefits they deserve, and will be especially important in assessing future damage mitigation and in evaluating evacuation and disaster plans. 

I don't care about being remembered, I just want to help any way I can.