Challenges Facing ICS Implementation

Crisis Management

ICS in New Orleans and Toronto

In both the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the outbreak of SARS in Toronto, the Incident Command System (ICS) had to implemented, yet both instances presented challenges to its implementation. In the former, the convergence of disparate agencies fueled an already chaotic situation, as few of the agencies were ICS prepared. In the latter, the outbreak was fueled by intensive, fear-causing media coverage, which ICS had to counter with education, patience, and endurance. In each case, the need for central command was essential but so was the ability of all agencies and workers to be "on the same page." This paper will compare and contrast both of these incidents and show how ICS was affected and had an impact.

Pre-Katrina, ICS in New Orleans was only being used for fire-related incidents. The emergency operations center (EOC) was not trained in ICS, thus EOC ended up being a liability rather than an asset. The challenges that the hurricane brought to the ICS concept was mainly that few were prepared to put the concept into practice. ICS training, therefore, had to be given on the spot. However, little on-site coordination among various departments added to the difficulty of putting true ICS into practice (Samaan, Verneuil, 2009). For ICS to work properly, it must be understood, embraced, and utilized by all agencies concerned. At Katrina, this was not the case -- few agencies were ready and prepared, other than the U.S. Coast Guard, which had a "spirit of mission" -- essentially meaning that the Coast Guard understood its role, had the capacity to carry it out, and displayed unity of purpose and preparedness (Samaan, Verneuil, 2009). ICS was part of its organizational culture. It should have been part of every agency's organizational culture, so that each was on the same page throughout the incident (Banerjee, n.d.), but because of a lack of planning and organization, ICS implementation sputtered from the outset.

In Toronto, the situation was different in that the chaos was caused not so much by the lack of ICS but by the over-attention given by the media to a relatively small outbreak of SARS. ICS had to contend with frenzy that was somewhat fabricated by the media, whereas in New Orleans the frenzy was real and partly caused by the unpreparedness of several agencies to handle ICS.

In Toronto, mass media portrayed the outbreak of SARS in near-apocalyptic terms, meaning that ICS had to perform educational tasks in order to calm rapidly escalating public fear, paranoia, etc. As a result of fear of spreading SARS, staff workers were isolated from communities and their morale had to be lifted via conference calls, where they were encouraged and congratulated for their hard work and perseverance on the "front lines" (Hawryluck, Lapinsky, Stewart, 2005). The ICS was responsible for managing the routines of the hospital emergency staff. As a result, the scope of the crisis management was much more focused than that in New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. It was also much more manageable as different sectors were prepped and trained on how to implement ICS beforehand.