Florida has developed Type-III incident management teams (IMTs) that are all-hazards responders designed so the state could respond to multiple events at the same time or to a large event that impacted multiple jurisdictions. During the initial Deepwater Horizon disaster response, Donald Hughes served as the operations chief for the IMT at the state's emergency operations center and as the operations section chief for the Florida branch at BP's unified command in Mobile, Ala.

Because the Deepwater Horizon oil spill was an industrial incident, the Stafford Act — which provides federal assistance to state and local governments to alleviate the suffering and damage from disasters — didn't apply. Instead, the event fell mainly under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990. This shook first responders' operating paradigm, said Hughes, who also is fire chief of the Satellite Beach (Fla.) Fire Department. Coastal-area responders were used to being in charge of their own destiny as typical for tropical weather events.

Hughes joined FIRE CHIEF Associate Editor Mary Rose Roberts to share his experiences at unified command, including the importance of working with high-risk companies prior to an incident so public-safety agencies can be better prepared to address manmade, industrial disasters.