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Supporting a Comprehensive All Hazards Response II-7 For more information on emergency authority, see DODI 3025.21, Defense Support of Civilian Law Enforcement Agencies, and DODD 3025.18, Defense Support of Civil Authorities (DSCA). 4. Emergency Support Functions a. The USG and many state governments organize their response resources and capabilities under the 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. b. Many state and local jurisdictions have adopted and tailored the ESF construct. State and local jurisdictions establish ESFs based on their specific risks and requirements, and there is no mandatory or direct linkage to the federal ESFs. However, many are similar to the ESF construct outlined in the NRF. ESFs align categories of resources and provide strategic objectives for their use. ESFs utilize standardized resource management concepts such as typing, inventorying, and tracking to facilitate the dispatch, deployment, and recovery of resources before, during, and after an incident. ESF coordinators and primary agencies are identified on the basis of authorities and resources. Support agencies are assigned based on the availability of resources in a given functional area. ESFs provide the greatest possible access to USG department and agency resources regardless of which organization has those resources. For a more detailed description of each of the 14 ESFs, see Appendix B, “Emergency Support Functions,” and DHS’s National Response Framework. 5. Catastrophic Incident Support a. The NRF states a catastrophic incident is “any natural or man-made incident, including terrorism, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the population, infrastructure, environment, economy, national morale, or government functions.” Catastrophic incident is the same as catastrophic event in DOD. 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. These factors drive the urgency for coordinated national planning to allow for accelerated federal or national assistance.