EMC020 ICS Tableau 
To:   Emergency Communications Units - Information Bulletin
By:   Auxiliary Communications Service (ACS), the volunteer
      communications reserve of the State of California 
      Governor's Office of Emergency Services

The ICS may seem overwhelming to those who have not been involved
at an active incident, but those who have will never forget it.

Within hours a fast-functioning organization of scores, hundreds
or thousands of people are actively coming and going where once
there was a sleepy school yard, city playground or county fair
ground. The place has come alive; it's become a teeming city of
people focused on solving a need for the community. It is both
quiet and busy, stirring yet sleepy, ever-flowing as people move
through it with purpose and knowledge of their tasks and the
commonalty of the Incident Command System that makes it all
possible.

See in your mind's eye the literally thousands of fire fighters
and support personnel, and hundreds of fire trucks, dozers,
tankers and other equipment, constantly ebbing and flowing in and
out of the area. Envision! Look over there, returning fire crews
are too weary to walk to the sleeping area; they've slumped to
the grass along side the building in exhausted asleep. Turn in
another direction and see other crews headed to the staging area. 
Turn your head to the left and catch a glimpse of others going
to the food areas. On the right, there's the communications van
with people coming and going with messages about resources and
assignments. A loud speaker crackles a terse call to a fire chief
to report to his crew. Everywhere the excited calm evidences the
quiet professionalism of the Incident Command System at work. 
It is a system that efficiently handles the nitty-gritty efforts 
that keep fire fighters functioning at the fire lines, tankers
filled and flying, choppers dropping their retardant, feeds and
assigns those sent to the fire lines (or quake site, or hazmat
spill, or any other emergency.) There is a strong feeling of real
professionalism at the Incident Base, the Incident Command Post,
the Staging Areas and the Camps. People helping people under a
common organization structure that WORKS, again, again and again.

End of Series.

Visit ACS on the World Wide WEB at http://www.garlic.com/oes
E-mail: crm@oes.ca.gov or seh@oes.ca.gov.  Phone:916-262-1600
BBS 916-262-1657  Packet: W6SIG@WA6NWE.CA    FAX 916 262-1677
ACS c/o State OES, 2800 Meadowview Rd., Sacramento, CA. 95832
EOM EMC020                          W6WWW@KM6PX.#NOCAL.USA.NA