JP 3-28, page 14

Executive Summary xii JP 3-28 (DSCA), federal military commanders, heads of DOD components, and responsible DOD civilian officials have immediate response authority. In response to an RFA from a civil authority, under imminently serious conditions and if time does not permit approval from higher authority, DOD officials may provide an immediate response by temporarily employing the resources under their control, subject to any supplemental direction provided by higher headquarters, to save lives, prevent human suffering, or mitigate great property damage within the US. Emergency Support Functions The USG and many state governments organize their response resources and capabilities under the emergency support function (ESF) construct. ESFs have proven to be an effective way to organize and manage resources to deliver core capabilities. The federal ESFs are the primary, but not exclusive, federal coordinating structures to build, sustain, and deliver the response core capabilities. The federal ESFs bring together the capabilities of USG departments and agencies and other national-level assets. ESFs are not based on the capabilities of a single department or agency, and the functions for which they are responsible cannot be accomplished by any single department or agency. Instead, federal ESFs are groups of organizations that work together to deliver core capabilities and support an effective response. Catastrophic Incident Support A catastrophic event could result in significant nationwide impacts over a prolonged period of time. It almost immediately exceeds resources normally available to state, local, territory, tribal, and private-sector authorities in the impacted area, and it significantly interrupts governmental operations and emergency services to such an extent that national security could be threatened. Recognizing that federal or national resources are required to augment overwhelmed state, local, territory, and tribal response efforts, the NRF Catastrophic Incident Annex establishes protocols to pre-identify and rapidly deploy key essential resources (e.g., medical teams, search and rescue teams, transportable shelters, medical and equipment caches, and emergency communications) required to save lives and contain incidents.