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The Office of Emergency Management says a detailed guide of the mayor's Citywide Incident Management System Protocol will be released in 30 days, meaning the Police and Fire departments should soon have a much clearer understanding of their roles in an emergency.
OEM Commissioner Joe Bruno made the announcement Tuesday during a City Council hearing with the heads of the NYPD and FDNY.
Last month, Mayor Michael Bloomberg released a plan outlining the Police and Fire department's responsibilities in case of another terrorist attack or other emergency However, the plan has received criticism from the police and fire unions, because it leaves the decision up to the OEM on a case-by-case basis, making it unclear as to who is in charge in certain situations.
“Put somebody in charge of the operation, let them be accountable, let them be responsible, and then after the operation if you want to critique people, that's great,” said Uniformed Firefighters Association President Steven Cassidy. “But let them be responsible for allocating resources, and they can allocate resources for more than one agency if they're in charge.”
“We think this protocol does a lot of good things, but we have some concerns,” Peter Vallone, the chairman of the Council's Public Safety Committee, which held today’s hearing, said on NY1's “New York Tonight” Monday. “One of our concerns is the fact that in too many instances, no one agency is in charge. It’s still decision-making by committee, and that’s one of our concerns.”
Another problem, Vallone said, is that the policy puts police, not firefighters, in charge of hazardous materials situations – making New York the only city in the country where that's the case, he said.
The Incident Management System Protocol was created because of a new federal law that requires the city to implement a system by October 1st in order to qualify for federal funding.
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