Episode 116: Building a Response and Recovery Federal Interagency Operations Plan

Federal government-wide disaster planning dates to the Cold War era Federal Response Plan, and similar documents, that describe how the United States would respond to nuclear war and severe disasters. This singular plan was maintained and updated after the Cold War ended. However, following the attacks of September 11th, 2001, it was deemed insufficient to meet the perceived requirement to ensure federal coordination for incidents too large for individual agencies or existing coordination structures to manage. In the years since, and at the direction of the President, doctrine and plans have been promulgated to establish an architecture for highly complex multi-agency events. Part of this architecture are federal interagency operation plans or FIOPS. In this episode, we explore the latest update to the Federal Response and Recovery FIOP and how it will guide federal agencies in their response and recovery mission areas and drive improved unity of effort, accomplishing one mission, supporting our citizens in times of need.