InfoGram

March 7, 2002

NOTE: This InfoGram will be distributed weekly to provide members of the emergency services sector with news and information concerning the protection of their critical infrastructures. For further information please contact the U.S. Fire Administration's Critical Infrastructure Protection Information Center at (301) 447-1325 or email at usfacipc@dhs.gov.

Community Infrastructure Protection

Many Americans believe the Federal Government has greatest influence over and responsibility for the protection of critical infrastructures. This belief is certainly understandable given the frequency and abundance of homeland security news generated by the White House in the past six months. Regardless, the CIPIC proposes that what is done and not done within local communities has a much larger affect on the protection of critical infrastructures, people, and property.

The community or municipality represents the crucial focal point for actions that make a daily difference in the personal and professional realities of citizens. For example, is it not true that local codes and ordinances determine more aspects of our lives than Federal Statutes? If so, then is not also logical to look to the community for assistance to ensure our safety at home, work, and play? After all, the initial rescuers on the scene of any crisis are the local emergency first responders!

Communities and municipalities have the primary duty to identify and protect the local critical infrastructures that provide for the safety and security of people and property. Community leaders, therefore, carry the burden of planning, financing, and executing crisis responses that protect these infrastructures and restore order from chaos. Such work is absolutely essential to deter or mitigate attacks on critical infrastructures and to build citizen confidence in community preparedness.

Recognizing the imperative role of emergency first responders in this matter, their senior leaders must be instrumental in all community emergency preparedness and infrastructure protection planning. The people who depend on efficient and expeditious response operations need assurances that the critical infrastructures of firefighters, emergency medical technicians, and law enforcers have been thoroughly identified and properly protected. Let it never be said that emergency first responders failed in their fundamental obligation to the citizenry by neglecting to protect their own local critical infrastructures.

Non-Emergency Communications

The Department of Justice (DOJ) apparently wants to lighten the load for overwhelmed 9-1-1 centers. According to a USA Today article, DOJ has allocated $5.5 million to help re-establish the toll-free 3-1-1 telephone number for non-emergency calls to police, fire, and other government offices. This DOJ endeavor primarily resulted from the events on and after 11 September, when callers worried about terrorism and anthrax attacks besieged 9-1-1 lines at numerous locations throughout the U.S. In 1997, the 3-1-1 call centers were initially reserved nationwide for non-emergency calls received 24 hours a day. These centers would take requests for service in their jurisdictions and dispatch help as needed. Without appreciation for the major logistical or practical concerns, 3-1-1 call centers seem to be an excellent way to protect the ability of 9-1-1 centers�a critical infrastructure�to dispatch the appropriate response and to serve the citizens of their respective areas.

Drought: Threat to Urban Critical Infrastructures

The 28 February InfoGram discussed how droughts are a threat to critical infrastructures. Since then, the CIPIC learned that drought now covers nearly a third of the United States and may continue to expand given the unfavorable extended forecast of seriously limited precipitation.

Typically, Americans do not view the drought as a threat to critical infrastructures. Those that do usually associate droughts with wildland fires in the western states. Very few people consider the drought to be a threat to urban critical infrastructures.

Because of the significant lack of rain and snow, tinder-dry conditions, and unseasonably warm weather in 30 percent of the country, New York City, Baltimore, and other cities are pumping water from temporary supplies. Thousands of wells in New Hampshire, Georgia, and Kansas have run dry. From Maine to Georgia and Montana to Texas, severe drought conditions are causing emergency restrictions on water use in homes and offices.

Drought conditions in two vast Eastern and Western strips have sharply increased the potential for wildfires in and nearby urban areas of the nation. Wildfires have become a major problem in America and around the world, according to the International Association of Wildland Fires (IAWF). "During 2000, more than 123,000 wildfires burned in excess of 8.4 million acres, requiring the efforts of over 30,000 firefighters." In addition, "on average, approximately one-third of all firefighter line-of-duty deaths involve wildland fires," stated Bruce Suenram, IAWF President.

The ongoing harsh dry conditions increase the likelihood of fire in and around affected urban areas. Such fires can easily destroy critical physical and cyber systems necessary for survivability, continuity of operations, and mission success. As too many families have already experienced, these same fires frequently take the lives of emergency first responders. With these dangers in mind, the CIPIC urges senior fire service leaders in drought regions to initiate community drought contingency plans to protect critical infrastructures from wildfires exacerbated by excessive dryness and perilously low water supplies.

Information Sharing for Infrastructure Protection

GovExec.com reported that the leaders of the House Intelligence Terrorism and Homeland Security Subcommittee introduced legislation to require information sharing between specific federal agencies and emergency first responders. If the legislation eventually passes, it will oblige federal, state, and local emergency organizations to share threat data pertaining to infrastructure protection and emergency preparedness.

This pending legislation recommends the use of existing technology to declassify and disseminate pertinent information through unclassified networks such as the National Law Enforcement Telecommunications System. Once it becomes a law, agencies at all levels of government would have six months to develop the procedures for sharing the data. It further stipulates that the number of background checks of state and local personnel would be increased to facilitate the exchange of information that cannot be declassified.

The CIPIC advises that this progressive proposal contains a multitude of complex issues. Many of those issues should be debated and resolved before it can be signed into law. For example, the associated protocols, conventions, obligations, and commitments must be identified prior to implementation. These are real "sticking points" that state and local leaders should not be encumbered to unravel. Hence, passage of this legislation could take quite a long time if these existing complexities are adequately deciphered before final congressional approval.

Preparing and Protecting First Responders

To promote the preparedness and protection of emergency first responders, representatives of the first response community recently met with the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Military Procurement. Several emergency response officials solicited the support of the congressional subcommittee for the following federal government initiatives:

• Adopt a comprehensive national strategy for the terrorism preparedness effort.
• Establish and maintain national training standards for terrorism response.
• Create standards for evaluating terrorism response training and equipment.
• Develop equipment to detect chemical, biological, or radiological contamination.
• Ensure new detection equipment is lightweight, mobile, and easy to use.
• Designate one federal agency to prepare and enforce terrorism training and equipment standards.
• Guarantee that new training and equipment technology reaches the smaller rural departments as well as those in larger cities.