Houston Police Department Emergency Response Plan

According to the Houston Police Department emergency response plan (2014), “The purpose of the Emergency Response Plan is to designate major responsibilities, delineate relationships, describe expectations, and provide guidelines for the department’s response to emergency situations in general” (Houston Police Department, 2014). An emergency response plan (ERP), is designed to assist federal, state and local governments in catastrophic situations such as terrorist attacks, natural and man-made disasters.

Every city and state has specific details in their emergency response plan, and in order ensure aid and support, “state and local governments must adopt the NIMS to receive federal preparedness assistance through grants, contracts, and other funding” (Sauter & Carafano, 2012, p. 245). Sauter and Carafano (2012) noted, “The NIMS attempts to ensure interoperability among federal, state, and local assets. It establishes procedures for managing operations; conducting training; and setting requirements standard terminology, and common procedures” (p. 245). The National Incident Management System (NIMS) model are applied and utilized for premeditated or unexpected incidents.

An Emergency Response Plan should be formatted in the following headings: (1)

FEMA played a vital role during Katrina and provided so much assistance. There was an incident commander present throughout the entire rescue and clean up mission here in Houston and everyone were on the same page. I realized that we all had different tactics and methods on doing things but during times of disasters, it is vital to have one specific channel of incident communication, organization and command. No jurisdiction is greater than the other and we all collaborate together to get the job done fast and effectively (multi-agency coordination