A Critical Evaluation of the Incident Command System and NIMS

TLDR: In this article, the authors focus on the importance of context as a largely unexamined precondition to effective ICS and conclude that the current efforts in the National Incident Management System (NIMS) to use ICS as a comprehensive principle of disaster management probably will not succeed as intended.

Abstract: In this article, the authors comment on the incident command system (ICS) as a management tool for structuring the activity of disaster response agencies at the site of disasters in the United States. The authors drawn their analysis from the use of ICS in nine different disasters in which the Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) Urban Search and Rescue (US&R) task forces participated. The authors focus on the importance of context as a largely un-examined precondition to effective ICS. In other words, the system is more or less effective depending on specific characteristics of the incident and the organizations in which it is used. ICS works best when those using it are part of a community, when the demands being responded to are routine to them, and when the sense of emergency on a social and cultural level is at a minimum, i.e., prior to panic situations. The authors conclude that the current efforts in the National Incident Management System (NIMS) to use ICS as a comprehensive principle of disaster management probably will not succeed as intended.