InfoGram

January 6, 2005

NOTE: This InfoGram will be distributed weekly to provide members of the emergency management and response sector with information concerning the protection of their critical infrastructures. It has been prepared by NATEK Incorporated for the Emergency Preparedness and Response Directorate. For further information, contact the Emergency Management and Response - Information Sharing and Analysis Center (EMR-ISAC) at (301) 447-1325 or by email at emr-isac@fema.dhs.gov.

CIP New Year's Considerations

For more than three years our nation has escaped new terrorist attacks. Tremendous efforts by all levels of government and society are ongoing to reduce or eliminate the risk of future terrorist activities within the United States. Nevertheless, nature attacks (i.e., natural disasters) continue to harm people, destroy property, drain resources, and degrade local critical infrastructures. In all probability, there will be additional incidents during this New Year that further deplete already constrained budgets and worsen the struggle to allocate scarce assets against competing priorities. Therefore, complacency by any municipality or its emergency responders would be an ill-advised tactic.

America's adversaries persist with patience and resolve to identify infrastructures and key assets that are unprepared and vulnerable. Accepting this fact, communities and their response agencies must be equally resolute to protect the critical infrastructures upon which governance and citizens depend. Local critical infrastructures deliver the daily services that promote life and fuel the economy. Reducing the vulnerability of critical infrastructures to terrorism also makes them more resilient to natural disasters and hazardous material accidents.

The start of a new year is prime time to consider improvements to critical infrastructure protection (CIP). But to minimize the time and cost of doing so, the EMR-ISAC recommends the application of the CIP Process: http://www.usfa.fema.gov/downloads/doc/cipc-jobaid.doc.

Using the CIP Process will ensure the allocation of limited resources for the protection of only those personnel, physical assets, and communication/cyber systems that really need protection. This systematic, analytical process helps to reduce infrastructures to a much smaller list of those that are truly critical and warrant high priority for protective measures.

Some additional "common sense practices" recently collected by the EMR-ISAC for CIP New Year's considerations follow:

• Prepare for all-hazard incidents (e.g., deliberate, natural, and accidental).
• Initiate multi-purpose measures that reduce or eliminate the risk from all-hazards.
• Pursue CIP strategies that emphasize relationships, communications, and cooperation.
• Revise emergency plans to include protection and prevention activities as well as response and recovery actions.
• Ensure plans include sections for schools, high-rise buildings, public utilities, public transportation, hospitals, and others as locally appropriate.
• Coordinate revised plans with mutual aid partners, law enforcement, public utilities, and other public and private sector agencies as appropriate.
• Require the command and staff personnel to review revised plans to guarantee their comprehension and ability to successfully implement the plans.

Encountering Ordnance

The 19 August 2004 InfoGram alerted that in some states there are unguarded, locked containers used to store explosives of which local elected leaderships and first responders were not aware. The 16 September 2004 InfoGram cautioned emergency responders about the existence of clandestine methamphetamine labs that could be located in vehicles, garages, apartments, hotels, homes, storage facilities, and vacant buildings across the country.

In the final days of 2004, the EMR-ISAC learned of two incidents in which responders unexpectedly encountered dangerous ordnance when performing their duties. In one incident, a fire in a weapons storage locker at a power plant set off ammunition that was heard discharging from behind a locked door. The small arms locker contained ammunition for the power plant's armed security force. The second incident occurred in a large metropolitan area while firefighters extinguished a blaze in a three-story home. They discovered a weapons cache that included numerous handguns, rifles, and ammunition.

The potential presence of such ordnance is a bitter reality that necessitates added caution by emergency personnel when responding to all incidents. Therefore, the EMR-ISAC recommends review of response plans-if necessary-to address the minimal employment of personnel and apparatus until the scene of an incident and adjacent areas are adequately searched and cleared when practicable.

Information Repository for Traumatic Occupational Injuries

Of the many important lessons learned applicable to the Emergency Services Sector, very few- if any-are more imperative than understanding what can be done to prevent responder deaths and injuries. The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) Fire Fighter Fatality Investigation and Program is a Congressionally mandated source of information on this topic.

Under this program, firefighter line-of-duty deaths, both fireground and non-fireground, are investigated to formulate recommendations for preventing future deaths and injuries. Investigators do not determine fault or place blame on fire departments or individual firefighters. Rather, they use the results of their investigations to examine the magnitude and characteristics of firefighter line-of-duty deaths and to disseminate prevention strategies to the fire service.

Each incident report, details about the procedures of conducting a NIOSH investigation, and a research database, as well as other related information, is available at http://www.cdc.gov/NIOSH/firehome.html.

National Response Plan (NRP) Online Training

A new online course was released this week: IS-800 The National Response Plan (NRP), an Introduction. This course introduces emergency management practitioners to the National Response Plan (NRP), including the concept of operations upon which the plan is built, the roles and responsibilities of the key players, and the organizational structures used to manage response resources. The NRP provides a framework to further ensure all response elements work together whenever this nation and residents are threatened.

The NRP specifies how the resources of the Federal Government will work in concert with state, local, and tribal governments and the private sector to respond to Incidents of National Significance. The document is predicated on the National Incident Management System (NIMS). Together the NRP and the NIMS provide a nationwide template for working together to prevent or respond to threats and incidents regardless of cause, size, or complexity.

Located at http://training.fema.gov/emiweb/is/is800.asp, this online course is designed primarily for Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and other Federal department/agency staff responsible for implementing the NRP. State, local, and private sector emergency management professionals will also find great benefit by taking this distance learning course.