Support Annexes - Roles and Responsibilities

Support Annexes – Roles and Responsibilities

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Each Support Annex identifies a coordinating agency and cooperating agencies. In some instances, the responsibility of a coordinating agency is a joint endeavor between two departments.

The overarching nature of functions described in these annexes frequently involves either support to or cooperation of all the departments and agencies involved in incident response and management efforts. Actions detailed in the annex involve multiple agencies employing various components of emergency management to ensure seamless integration of and transitions between preparedness, prevention, response, recovery, and mitigation activities.

The responsibilities of the coordinating agency and cooperating agencies are identified below.

Coordinating Agency

Coordinating agencies described in the annexes support the incident management mission by providing the leadership, expertise, and authority to implement and manage critical and specific aspects of the response. The City of Harrisonburg and Rockingham County Offices of Emergency Management retain responsibility for overall incident management. Local agencies designated as coordinating agencies are responsible for implementing the processes detailed in the annexes.

When the functions of a particular Support Annex are required to assist in the management of an incident, the coordinating agency is responsible for:

Orchestrating a coordinated delivery of those functions and procedures identified in the annex.

Providing staff for the operations function at fixed and field facilities.

Notifying and sub-tasking cooperating agencies.

Managing tasks with cooperating agencies, as well as appropriate State and Federal agencies.

Working with appropriate private sector and non-governmental organizations to maximize use of all available resources.

Supporting and keeping ESFs and other organizational elements informed of ongoing activities.

Planning for short-term and long-term support to incident management and recovery operations; and

Maintaining personnel adequately trained to execute their appropriate support responsibilities.

Nominating new technologies or procedures that have the potential to improve performance within or across functional areas for review and evaluation.

Conducting operations, when requested by the coordinating agency or emergency management, using their own authorities, subject-matter experts, capabilities, or resources.

Participating in planning for short-term and long-term incident management and recovery operations and the development of supporting operational plans, standard operating procedures, checklists, or other job aids, in concert with existing first-responder and agency standards.

Furnishing available personnel, equipment, or other resource support as requested by emergency management.

Participating in training and exercises aimed at continuous improvement of prevention, response, and recovery capabilities; and

Nominating new technologies or procedures that have the potential to improve performance within or across functional areas for review and evaluation.