Much of NIMS focuses on the primary First Responders...Police, Fire, EMS...which is understandable . It is difficult to imagine an emergency or disaster where they would not be involved. In most cases, Police or Fire  will serve as Incident Command.  However, Public Works has been officially recognized by several Federal Directives as a First Responder.  In major disasters such as tornado, hurricane, earthquake , flooding, severe wind storms, landslides/avalanches/ sinkholes, volvanic eruption ( think Pacific Rim)  and structural collpases ( I-35 bridge), PW will be needed and at some point will become Incident Commnad.  PW agencies, unlike our counterparts in the other 3 First Responder agencies, are not focused and structured on emergency response.  It is part of our role but our focus in normal routine is to build, preserve, maintain, repair,etc.  When the disaster bell rings we are not sitting around a station or in the field in equipment  such as patrol car, fire truck or ambulance designed, equipped and staffed  spcifically for a particular response.  Likewise, our employees do not receive the extensive training for dealing with such situations. 

Therein lies the issue; PW employees at all levels must be better trained in emergency response and better equippped .  But, we ususally come behind police and fire when funding is allocated.   Nearly all PW employees by now have recieved the mandatory NIMS training; frankly, most of them had difficulty comprehending  the jumble of terms, acronyms and concepts based on massive disasters.  Most of the events we deal with are localized  and that needs the attention.   I have tried to get CERT training for my PW employees but have met with resistance from the training agency because we are not "community volunteers".  I'll be pressing this issue more with them as who is more reliable--a group of grannies or guys who are in the dirt every day? 

Disclosurer:  I represent American Public Works Association on the FEMA  National Advisory Council NIMS sub-committee.

Need to revise NIMS training to better reflect role of Public Works.

Need to encourage, support and provide better hands-on training and equipping to public works agencies, many of which are smaller and under-funded in comparison to police , fire and EMS.