WASHINGTON – The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has updated the National Response Plan (NRP) as required to incorporate new procedural changes based on lessons learned from exercises and real world events. These changes emerged from organizational changes within DHS as well as from the experience of responding to Hurricanes Katrina, Wilma and Rita in 2005. Accordingly, DHS has issued a Notice of Change to the NRP and a Quick Reference Guide to those changes. This Notice of Change will be followed later this year by an extensive review of the document, at which time the NRP will be reissued.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s NIMS Integration Center urges all federal, state, territorial, tribal and local emergency managers and others whose primary responsibility involves incident management to review these changes.

Meanwhile, the IS-800 National Response Plan: An Introduction, Web-based training course will be revised to reflect the changes to the NRP. Emergency Management personnel who have already completed IS-800 training as part of the FY06 NIMS Compliance Activities will not be required to re-take the training. However, the Center urges everyone who has completed IS-800 to review the NRP Notice of Change document and the Quick Reference Guide to the changes.

DHS/FEMA NIMS Integration Center

May 30, 2006

Click Here to download Notice of Change - 415KB PDF

Click Here to download Quick Reference Guide - 316KB PDF