InfoGram

August 28, 2003

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 information systems. It has been prepared by NATEK Incorporated for the US Fire Administration. For further information please contact the U.S. Fire Administration's Critical Infrastructure Protection Information Center at (301) 447-1325 or email at email at usfacipc@dhs.gov.

A CIP Review for Emergency Responders

Approximately two years have passed since the CIPIC provided a series of InfoGrams explaining the essence of critical infrastructure protection (CIP) for firefighters, emergency medical personnel, and emergency managers. Therefore, for the benefit of many new readers, the first article of this and the next five InfoGrams will focus on CIP as a systematic process to enhance the all-hazards mitigation, mission assurance, and operational effectiveness of emergency responders.

The major objective of CIP is to protect the people, physical assets, and communication systems that are indispensably necessary for survivability, continuity of operations, and mission success. CIP activities and countermeasures should deter or mitigate attacks on critical infrastructures by people, nature, and HazMat accidents (i.e., all hazards). The prevailing philosophy is to protect only those people and things that really, really need protection to avoid the unwarranted or wasteful application of scarce resources.

As a review, the CIP process consists of the following five steps:

• Identify the infrastructures that are truly critical (i.e., indispensable).
• Determine the threats against these critical infrastructures.
• Analyze the vulnerabilities of the infrastructures that are threatened.
• Assess the risk of losing threatened and vulnerable infrastructures.
• Apply countermeasures to protect infrastructures that are unacceptable to risk.

A thorough explanation of CIP and the five-step process can be seen in the CIP Process Job Aid available as a Microsoft Word Document (81kb) to read and download at: http://www.usfa.fema.gov/fire-service/cipc/cipc-jobaid.shtm.

Target Hazards Inspections Bolster CIP

Many chief officers teach that personnel familiarization with their response area makes a crucial difference in an emergency. They maintain that periodic "jurisdiction orientations" to acquire intimate details can ensure current community status awareness and improve response capabilities.

The CIPIC supports formal departmental preplanning to identify significant target hazards in respective jurisdictions with particular attention to the many community critical infrastructures that affect emergency response operations. Processing the data collected during these "target hazards inspections" will facilitate the knowledgeable revision of response plans as necessary. The information will also enable department leaders to make more reliable decisions regarding the protection of their own critical infrastructures, with their personnel being foremost among them. Additionally, as a cooperative community team player, the department chief officer can share the valuable data with other CIP stakeholders in law enforcement, public utilities, etc.

An example of how "target hazards inspections" can benefit local emergency responders can be found in Portland, Maine. To address the problem of vacant and dangerous buildings found during these inspections, the city recently enacted a new ordinance. As a result, the inspectors now use a color-coded system of 2-foot square reflective placards, each with a large "V" on it to identify the vacant buildings. A green placard means there are minimum interior hazards in the building. Yellow indicates some hazards exist and work inside should be done cautiously. A red placard instructs firefighters to stay outside the building.

The Most Essential Critical Infrastructure

Considering how people depend on water for daily living, working, hospital care, firefighting, etc., it is probably accurate to classify water as life's sustenance and safety infrastructure, and the most essential among national and local critical infrastructures. However, it is an unfortunate reality that water is a vulnerable infrastructure in ways having little or nothing to do with terrorism.

During the widespread blackout two weeks ago, cascading power failures caused countless of water and sewage treatment plants to lose some or all of their electric power. Unable to operate without electricity and, often lacking backup power, several facilities could not maintain a clean water supply. Even at many locations that did not lose water people were still instructed to boil water before use.

In the older metropolitan areas of the country, there are water systems consisting of seriously aging tunnels and mains that are prone to break or fail. Circumstances in a few of these major cities are that a very small number of tunnels or mains provide water to the entire community. At those locations, the loss of even one part of the system could deny water to half of the population for days or even weeks. In some places there may not be water for anything.

Given this serious water situation in some parts of America, the CIPIC suggests that fire departments know the daily condition of the municipal water system, and have written and rehearsed contingency plans for the short and long term loss of water from the local system.

FEMA Backup Systems Survey

The nation's worst blackout occurred 14 August after power failures darkened parts of Canada and eight states. This event prompted the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to survey the vulnerability of critical facilities such as water and sewage treatment plants, which failed because of the electricity outage.

Mike Brown, the FEMA director, said in an interview with The Associated Press that he has initiated a national inventory of backup systems and vulnerabilities in the county's infrastructure to prevent future failures. "It is unacceptable to me that water treatment plants, for example, don't have backup power or that water treatment plants are susceptible to that kind of outage," Brown said.

He continued that FEMA was also conducting an internal review to determine how many of its own emergency response facilities lack backup power. Mr. Brown did not say how long it would take to complete the massive fact-finding effort, which is supposed to look at other possible weaknesses besides water treatment and availability.