A. Awareness is the first receipt of information by the SAR system of an actual or potential SAR incident initiates the Awareness stage.
B. Arrival in disaster area and deployment. Disaster response is locally executed, state/territory managed and federally supported. Following a disaster, the incident commander may request assistance from the state/territory; if response requirements are beyond the capabilities of the state or territory, national assistance may be requested.
C. Initial Action. This stage is the period in which the SAR system begins the response, and it follows immediately after an element of the system is made aware of the emergency. Unless the incident is clearly a hoax or false alarm, or it occurs outside its jurisdiction, the very first step is to determine the degree of severity of the incident and classify its phase as Uncertainty, Alert, or Distress. The nature of the incident and the rate in which the situation may deteriorate determine the urgency of response. The chances of survival diminish with time and the seriousness of the incident, therefore these two aspects (severity and urgency) are evaluated as quickly as possible. Signaling equipment available to survivors greatly influences the degree of urgency and type of SAR response most suitable to the circumstances. In urgent cases however, this stage is skipped, and immediate action is taken.
D. Planning Tactical Field Level. When an incident has progressed to the point of where it is classified as a “Distress”, and the exact location of the Distress is either not known, or a significant amount of time has passed since the search object’s exact position was last known, the development of operational plans, i.e. plans for search, rescue, and final delivery are necessary.
Search and rescue operations typically followed a standardized and predictable sequence of decisions, though the specific decision outcomes arrived upon were entirely dependent upon the circumstances of the search.
E. Operations
The SAR operations stage encompasses all activities that involve searching for the distressed persons, providing assistance, and delivering them to a place of safety. In this stage, the Incident Commander assumes a monitoring and guidance role, ensuring that the search and rescue plans are received, understood, and followed by SAR facilities. They may also continue to gather or receive more information and assess them to see if it affects or changes any of the plans previously made. In this stage the following take place:
- The dispatch of Search/Rescue units.
- Conducting the search.
- Rescuing survivors.
- Assisting the distressed craft.
- Providing emergency care for survivors.
- Delivering casualties to medical facilities.
