Dear Mayor Adam & Town Manager Smith,
You, Sirs, Need IMS. You look out of your window at Town Hall to see the city in ruins, lone policemen cut off from the rest of their units, firefighters in burning rubble with no idea where they are, and worse, nobody knows they are lost in the fray. Riots have begun explode out of control, and when response to unrest by authorities is slow and uncoordinated, things turn ugly. Chain-of-command has completely broken down, US Army generals are being knocked off their feet by firefighters ordered to prevent them from entering the area, phone and power lines are down across the city hampering communication, and looters are running rampant in a state of anarchy. National Guardsmen unleash a hail of bullets toward a two-family home after a police officer yells ‘cover me!’. Are the levees compromised, or not? You can’t get a straight answer. Your emergency management plans provided one-stop solutions that weren't applicable, scalable, or adaptable to more complex situations, like the ones you are now facing. And eventually, the people are going to blame this lack of preparedness and proper response on you, putting an end to a fine career of public service. But it doesn't have to be this way. In fact, you can save your city and your career by supporting and implementing an Incident Management System – you might even be able to swing some extra federal funding your way in the form of emergency preparedness grants! Although we do our best here in our fair city to prevent crises from occurring, when incidents do occur we need a go-to template that can be tailored into an adaptable, scalable solution. Think of an incident such as the attack at the Pentagon on 9/11. In Howitt and Leonard, we learned this event wasn't just an explosion. Nor was it solely a fire, a building collapse or a national security breach. It was all of