Commander’s Intent and the LIPER
Applicable across all phases of the Disaster Cycle, Life Safety must be prioritized in professional Emergency Management
A military concept, where the prime objectives for a campaign are highlighted for subordinates, the concept of Commander’s Intent is also applicable to professional Emergency Management. Albeit the objectives are clearly different – the military’s may be “defeat the enemy” or “take this hill in the next 24 hours” – the workflow is the same for Emergency Management. These are top-level ‘marching orders’, whereby your missions must align with them and their prioritization.
Commander’s Intent does not have to be “S.M.A.R.T.” goals for either the military or Emergency Management (EM). For EM in the U.S., Commander’s Intent is found in the NIMS/ICS Incident Action Plan (It’s the top paragraph of the ICS 202 form) and what’s written and conveyed there should follow the priorities of the LIPER:
You will see the first three letters – the “LIP” in typical Emergency Services Response work, but as was mentioned in the title, EM looks at the totality of the incident – including the before and the after. You would not want to be in an EM Response role where the IAP has anything other than Life Safety as the top priority in the Incident Objectives.
Even on smaller scale projects – including those outside of traditional EM – you will (well, you really should) see examples of this. Watch any YouTube videos about trench digging without proper shoring devices/equipment, or those super-scary scaffolding videos from other countries; and you will see examples of when the LIP is not being implemented.
A military unit may be willing to sacrifice troops to meet the Commander’s Intent. In fact, that may very well be required. That is never the case in true professional EM. We are not heroic, like those in Emergency Services and the military are. This is why there are Safety Officers in the Incident Command structure, why ‘ground stops’ are ordered, and more. The life safety of responders comes first. They need to come back and do this again. And again.
EM professionals need to advocate for the LIPER and EM associations and other advocates need to shout from the rooftops when organizations – including governmental leaders – do not prioritize the LIPER as part of disaster readiness and resiliency – including in response. Here are two opposite examples from Governors in 2025:
Governor Greg Abbott at the start of the incident response to the horrific and deadly flooding in Kerr County Texas stated, “Know this, we remain in Search and Rescue posture right now”. He prioritized ‘rescue’ over recovery, and economical and environmental restoration. This indicated a strong understanding of the situation and EM-based prioritization, as well as the health and mental health of both the responders and the impacted community.
And on the flipside:
Governor Jeff Landry at 24 hours post the New Year’s Day attack in New Orleans, Louisiana stated, “I issued an emergency declaration, that declaration was meant to streamline resources and communications between state, local and federal partners. And we’re seeing the results of it. I would also like to remind everyone that what’s going on in this city and this state is twofold: we’ve got an active criminal investigation going in while we are also continuing to secure the city in preparation for 3:00 kickoff time for the Sugar Bowl.” I will note that the Governor opened his comments by remarking that the flags across the state were at half-mast in honor of the victims. This indicated a law-enforcement-centric property/asset protection, as well as an economic prioritization; and not necessarily communicating the health and mental health life-safety needs of both the responders and the impacted community.
Learn more about the LIPER and other EM mantras and acronyms at my book “Emergency Management Threats and Hazards: Water”. In a free-to-read chapter about general EM concepts, I described Commander’s Intent as follows (and in relation to water-based threats and hazards):
Incident/Unified Command: Commander’s Intent must incorporate the long-term view of problem-solving. And that view for Response missions must take into account environmental concerns along all of the Recovery Support Functions. For example, solutioning a bypass to a section of contaminated land in a riverbed by creating a new channel for the river water to flow around the contaminated area will require multiple entities and agencies to evaluate existing environmental concerns, economic impacts to the local jurisdiction of these changes, long-term testing of water quality, and more. Those decisions will undoubtably have financial, staffing, and other impacts beyond those involved in the incident command system for this incident.