Will Keep it Informal Instead
by Graham Rayman, New York Newsday
The commissioners of the police and fire departments declined yesterday to commit to a formal set of rules that would create a single command structure in the event of a disaster on the scale of the Sept. 11 attacks.
Instead, Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly described, during a City Council hearing, an informal pledge of cooperation and noted that a series of changes have been made to improve coordination.
“Police personnel are not qualified to direct fire personnel in carrying out their mission, and neither are fire personnel qualified to direct police personnel,” Kelly said. “One group telling the other what to do, I don’t think it works.”
The McKinsey reports, consultant studies commissioned separately by the departments and released in August, found that police and fire commanders “rarely coordinated command and control functions” and “rarely exchanged information” during the Sept. 11 response.
The agencies set up separate command posts with little interchange between them and issued separate evacuation orders. The two departments have historically had a rivalry, sometimes known as the Battle of the Badges.
Over the past year, some observers have suggested the city prepare a plan to delineate the command structure in major incidents. Some have said the city Office of Emergency Management should control that structure.
The McKinsey report itself recommended wider use of the Incident Command System, a nationally recognized model for multi-agency response.
Uniformed Fire Officers Association President Peter Gorman said the Incident Command System is key. “The NYPD and FDNY performed heroically on 9/11 but obviously operated parallel and separate from each other,” he said. “Unless we address the ICS issue aggressively, we are doomed to repeat our failures of 9/11.”
The commissioners’ comments at the council hearing indicated that the three departments will in essence maintain the status quo that existed prior to Sept. 11, while working on several staffing and technology changes to improve coordination.
“There’s a danger of getting wrapped around the axel over who’s in charge,” Kelly said. “Everything can’t be written down. We can’t sit here and think of every conceivable event. These are events that are often complex and murky.”
John Odermatt, commissioner of the Office of Emergency Management, described the role of his office as a “coordinator” in multi-agency incidents, which, he hastened to add, usually includes many other agencies beyond the police and fire departments.
“Our job is to pull together the agencies,” said Odermatt, who is seeking federal funds to build a new emergency command center in Brooklyn.
Councilwoman Yvette Clarke (D-Brooklyn) suggested that without a formal agreement in place, disputes might occur. “I’m concerned about who’s the joint chief of staff,” Clarke said.
Asked what would happen in the event of an on-scene disagreement, Kelly said, “We would hope that common sense prevails.”
The officials also noted that the loss of the city emergency command center on the day of the attack deprived responders of the very place designed to ease coordination among agencies. Scoppetta said that police and fire officials are working on a written agreement, which would lay out responsibilities to more routine incidents.
“I’m concerned that with this approach, there is still a lack of planning for a true integrated response,” said Sally Regenhard, co-founder of the Skyscraper Safety Campaign. Regenhard lost her son, Christian, a firefighter, in the World Trade Center collapse.