Incident Command Futurism

The availability of integrated remote sensing platforms and digital data collection and sharing tools is changing spill response. These tools facilitate a more effective and rapid decision-making process that can increase resource protection, improve responder safety, and reduce response costs. Early detection and response are a key to preventing smaller incidents from becoming larger. A variety of innovative tools now exist or are in development that could assist facilities and responders in the early stages and throughout an incident event to reduce human, environmental, and economic impacts. Real time field data collection for key parameters such as oil thickness and trajectory, SCAT data, oiled wildlife details, and resources at risk identification, allows for more robust data to be shared rapidly throughout the response operation. This information facilitates more effectively targeted deployment and re-deployment of human and mechanical response assets, and more immediate assessment of both environmental impacts and cleanup progress. Auto-population of incident command system forms as well as better document sharing and document retention through remote and cloud-based file saving platforms can improve the administrative and functional aspects of the response, contributing to enhanced efficiency. The ability to identify and effectively respond to rapidly changing circumstances provides the Unified Command with new tools to make better decisions and keep the public informed of progress. This paper considers new and emerging technologies as they may be applied to the work in a unified command setting, and how they may allow us to compress the operational period for decision-making and action, more accurately and more rapidly understand and share the spill response status, and how we may be able to enhance responder safety and recognize cost savings. We also consider some inherent risks associated with reliance on integrated technologies and digital information and will offer suggestions for drills and exercises to test and optimize these tools.