InfoGram

January 16, 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 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@fema.gov.

Critical Infrastructure Protection Clarification

Sector leaders of the emergency services occasionally convey that limited resources (e.g., time, money, personnel, materials) prohibit their application of CIP. In many conversations, they state that there is "too much to protect and not enough resources to do so." But very often their list of things to be protected contains entries that have no direct bearing on the survivability, continuity of operations, and mission success of their department. The excess entries of their critical infrastructures usually are more relevant to the municipality than the fire/EMS department (e.g., schools, sewage treatment plants, electric transmission lines, town halls, etc.).

The CIPIC does not diminish the importance of protecting schools, sewage treatment plants, etc. Indeed, these physical assets are appropriate infrastructure protection concerns of community emergency managers. Therefore, on behalf of their community, emergency managers should coordinate the effort to identify and protect critical infrastructures belonging to the municipality as a whole. Coordinating the protection of community critical infrastructures must include the major infrastructure stakeholders within the municipality (e.g., elected leaders, public utilities, police, fire, EMS, hospitals, schools, industry, etc.)

The needed clarification is that emergency first responders are responsible to apply the CIP process exclusively within their individual departments. Chief officers do this in order to protect only those personnel, physical assets, and cyber systems that must be intact and operational for their department to accomplish its life and property saving services. By focusing on the few critical infrastructures of their department, fire and EMS senior leaders may discover that CIP-for natural and man-made disasters-is not as difficult or impossible to implement.

Enhancing CIP with Practice

Senior emergency response leaders frequently ask the CIPIC about cost-effective methods to enhance CIP. It should not be surprising that answers to this question are limited only by the imagination and creativity of the responsible chief officers. However, the CIPIC will always recommend practice as a time-tested and proven method to reinforce the survivability, continuity of operations, and mission success of any department. Practice provides practical and efficient opportunities to correct internal operational difficulties, improve incident command protocols, and resolve conflicts when integrating the actions of multiple departments and intergovernmental organizations.

The key to obtaining significant benefits is to seek frequent occasions to practice essential response skills, and to do so as much as possible with other (mutual aid) departments and intergovernmental organizations. Additionally, if it is true that "planning plus practice equals performance," then all departments should consider the many ways to enhance their existing best practices, especially as they apply to CIP. The following suggestions were extracted from a planning guide produced by the National League of Cities:

• Full-scale exercises. Real-life emergency simulations involving local emergency response personnel, mutual aid departments, and all infrastructure stakeholders.
• Evacuation drills. Thorough examinations of evacuation routes leading to designated personnel accounting areas to identify potential hazards during emergencies.
• Functional drills. Evaluations of the specific functions that must be performed when responding to various emergencies.
• Walk-through drills. Rehearsals of emergency response functions by the critical infrastructure stakeholders.
• Tabletop exercises. Scenario-driven events for critical infrastructure stakeholders to confer regarding responsibilities and appropriate responses to various emergencies.
• Education sessions. Regularly scheduled discussions to provide information, answer questions, and identify needs and concerns.

WMD Civil Support Teams

The CIPIC recommends that community leaders, including those of first responders, consider the role of Weapons of Mass Destruction Civil Support Teams (WMD-CST) when preparing or updating emergency response and infrastructure protection plans. These teams provide the unique expertise and capabilities of the Department of Defense to assist in preparing for and responding to chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear (CBRN) incidents as part of a state's emergency response structure. More specifically, WMD-CST are National Guard assets established to deploy rapidly to assist a local incident commander in determining the nature and extent of an attack or event; provide expert technical advice on WMD response operations; and help identify and support the arrival of follow-on state and federal military response organizations.

Each WMD-CST consists of 22 highly skilled, full-time National Guard members who are federally resourced, trained, exercised, and evaluated. They operate under federally approved CBRN response doctrine and are limited to consequence management activities only. WMD-CST personnel provide initial advice on what the agent may be through a reliable detection assessment process. As the first military responders on the ground they also serve as an advance party to liaise with the Joint Task Force Civil Support if additional federal resources are called into the situation.

First and foremost, the Civil Support Teams are state assets who will perform their mission primarily under the command and control of the governors of the states in which they are located. Operationally, they are subordinate to the adjutant generals of those states. Local municipalities can expect that these teams will respond to an incident as part of a state response, and before federal response entities would be called upon for assistance.

Maps for Emergency and Infrastructure Planning

According to a U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) report, their new mapping method can produce flood-inundation maps as much as three to five days ahead of a storm, giving response personnel and others more time to plan and execute. The maps show computer-generated scenarios of flooded areas and flood depths for a specific storm. The USGS method combines high-accuracy elevation data, a new computer flow model, and a geographic information system, to produce maps in real-time. For more information, contact the USGS at (253) 428-3600, ext. 2648, or by email at jljones@usgs.gov.

USGS scientists and partners also recently revised the national seismic hazard maps that provide information essential to seismic design provisions of building codes in the United States. Engineers and planners now have updated information to ensure that buildings, bridges, highways, and utilities are built or rebuilt to meet modern seismic design provisions and are better able to withstand earthquakes. The latest color-coded versions of the maps are available at: http://geohazards.cr.usgs.gov/eq/.