Icehotel or Wonderland? Reimagining the United States’ National Incident Management System

Disasters and catastrophes are increasing in frequency, severity and complexity, meaning that effective multi-organisational response has never been more pertinent. The United States’ National Incident Management System (NIMS), which includes the on-scene Incident Command System (ICS) component, is mandated for use at all levels of government and is often framed, somewhat narrowly, as a mechanistic hierarchy or an organic network. The related literature is divergent: academic critiques are lamented for lacking real-world insights whereas practitioner accounts are, unfairly, dismissed as anecdotal, meaning that novel insights that inform future preparedness are needed. Accordingly, this conceptual study reimagines NIMS/ICS using pragmatism, metaphorical analysis — informed by Morgan’s seminal organisational metaphors, Pinto’s ‘Icehotel’, and McCabe’s ‘Wonderland’ metaphors — and symbolic logic. This paper demonstrates that NIMS/ICS is both mechanistic and organic, and much more at the same time. They engender much-needed novel and innovative perspectives which can be embedded within training and education activities to address the increasingly complex nature of disasters and catastrophes.