| A radiological event can be small enough to be managed by a single person or might be so large as to involve an entire city. Managing the former is a fairly simple matter and might be managed by a single health physicist; managing the latter will require an Incident Commander and his or her staff - none of whom are likely to be radiation safety professionals. In this PEP we will discuss how the Incident Command System works and how it would be applied to a major radiological event. We will also discuss the decisions that must be made by an incident commander or his/her staff (e.g. evacuation versus shelter-in-place, assigning stay times, balancing radiological versus non-radiological risks, etc) and how these decisions can be addressed. We will also discuss how health physicists can effectively work with the Incident Commander and the Health and Safety Officer to develop an effective response that accounts for the various risks that are present. |
