Public Education and ICS

[Frosty42]

While watching the news coverage on the mining tragedy, I picked up on a comment made at one of the press briefings that caught my attention. The CEO of the mining company stated that "When we learned of the communication error, the decision to hold off on informing the families and the media was made by all those present in the command post. All were in agreement".

I heard this and gave this comment alot of thought. I am not judging this decision right or wrong, however, I have come to the conclusion that we need to do a better job of informing the public in detail just how the command system works. I believe that if the general public understood how decisions are made on incidents and how we responders establish our ICS structure, I believe that the general public and the media would understand that tough decisions need to be made, and that there is a structure in place to manage incidents.

My question is this....
If we as a whole made this a proactive component of our public education programs, do we expose our incident commanders to greater liability concerns and accountability?

[resq437]

My name is Jim and I work for the Tinley Park Fire Dept in Illinois. I am currently looking to start a program for the new Hotels we have in town. And also for the nursing homes. I am looking to do fire safety for both employees and residents of the hotels and nursing homes. Does anyone out there have any kind of program in effect already? Or does anyone have any suggestions? If anyone can help,please E Mail me at JGASKILL@tinleypark.org.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!