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National Response Plan
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The National Response Plan is the national plan to respond to national emergencies such as terrorist attacks, natural disasters or emergency. Within the United States natural disaster response and planning is first and foremost a local government responsibility. When local government exhausts its resources, it then requests specific additional resources from the county level. The request process proceeds similarly from the county to the state to the federal government as additional resource needs are identified.
The Department of Homeland Security administers the plan. According to the department's website, "In the event of a terrorist attack, natural disaster or other large-scale emergencies, the Department of Homeland Security will assume primary responsibility for ensuring that emergency response professionals are prepared for any situation."[1] The emphasis is that Homeland Security will assume "primary responsibility" which was created to prevent the uncoordinated response of various local, state, and federal agencies in attack scenarios.
Training in the plan is available from the Federal Emergency Management Agency training website at no charge.
The National Response Plan was last updated on May 25, 2006. The Notice of Change states the update "emerged from organizational changes within DHS, as well as the experience of responding to Hurricanes Katrina, Wilma, and Rita in 2005."
The National Response Plan can be obtained in PDF format at the Department of Homeland Security's website.link
August 30, 2005 Secretary Michael Chertoff invoked the National Response Plan the day after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast on the morning of August 29, 2005. By so doing, the Secretary assumed the leadership role triggered by the law to bear primary responsibility to manage said crisis. The invocation occurred due to the inability of local and state government to handle the situation.
September 22, 2005 In advance of the landfall of Hurricane Rita, Chertoff declared the storm an incident of national significance and put preparations in place in the gulf region of Texas.