Office of Operations
21st Century Operations Using 21st Century Technologies

5.9 Decision Making

A unified incident command system was established. There was one representative from the affected entities such as the South Salt Lake City Fire Department, Police Department, and Highway Patrol.

The decision to evacuate was made by a group of 10 to 12 entity representatives analyzing the situation and the potential for the situation. The unified incident commander (deputy fire chief of the fire department) made the decision to evacuate in consultation with senior advisors and support staff from other entities.

The LEPC was informed but was minimally involved in this incident, since the fire department had the incident under control.


February 6, 2006
Publication #FHWA-HOP-08-014