Factors in Building an Incident Command Organization for the Largest Oil Spill in U.S. History

Abstract

ABSTRACT The Deepwater Horizon MC 255 Oil Spill (DWH) was the largest oil spill in U.S. history, with over 255 million gallons of oil estimated released into the environment. The response to the spill was massive involving tens of thousands of resources on the ground, on the water, under the sea and in the air. The National Incident Management System's Incident Command System (ICS) was the command and control structure used to manage these resources. In the words of a nationally recognized ICS expert, Mr. Charles Mills, President of Emergency Management Systems Incorporated, “This was the most complex incident managed with ICS in the history of its use.”1 This paper focuses on the ICS organization built for the DWH incident to provide some useful information to planners and emergency preparedness professionals to use in their pollution response contingency plans and preparedness programs. This paper will focus on the State of Louisiana Incident Command Post (ICP). Due to the size of the spill and the resp...