The objective of this paper is to present an institutional view of disasters derived in part from the results of a recent study of hospitals in the United States. It is offered in the hope that a focus on institution will help resolve the present lack of fit between, on the one hand, the increasing complexity of the new hazards and on the other, existing conceptualizations in the social sciences of disasters and emergency management that privilege the community. The paper uses information from 76 participants in 13 focus groups in acute-care hospital organizations in California, Tennessee, and New York to illustrate the argument for institutions. The implications of these findings for an institutional conceptualization of disasters are discussed.