ICS is one of those things that sounds so very good on paper. In fact, it DOES work well. However, the problem with ICS is basically as follows:

a)it expects enough resources on hand to be able to have a "commander" and all that. We typically have three people respond during the day.

This line is utter cr$p:

"Smallest incident, at a minimum, there’s always an Incident Commander. There’s always an Incident Command Post, and there’s always a Staging Area. Largest incident: There’s still one Incident Commander, in one command post. His or her identity is known to everyone, and that person is only getting reports from, and giving orders to, a bare handful of subordinates. Each of those subordinates is getting information from, and giving orders to, three to seven subordinates.

You know what? I'd LOVE to be an IC - but you roll up, there's me an one other guy in the rescue, there's a third who rolled up in their pickup truck, and you have an entrapped person in the car - you know what? I'm not going to stand back and say "OK, I'm command, you're operations, and you're logistics" We're going to cut the car open. You can't chatter on a radio and cut a car open at the same time.





b) it expects people to recognize a single leader with ultimate incident authority

c) it expects people to react in a calm, unemotional mannner

That said, it's better to work in an ICS structure, if you can, than a mayhem model, which is pretty common.