InfoGram

June 9, 2005

NOTE: This InfoGram will be distributed weekly to provide members of the Emergency Services Sector with information concerning the protection of their critical infrastructures. 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.

Suspicious Sector Activities and Countermeasures

During the past two weeks, Emergency Services Sector (ESS) organizations experienced suspicious activities that were reported to proper authorities. Seven fire departments received anti-war/anti-government videotapes. Three departments described suspicious videotaping of their firehouses. Also, hackers attempted to access the secure computer files of a county Emergency Medical Services (EMS) agency. The EMR-ISAC cautions that the preceding occurrences are only examples and not inclusive. In addition to the continuing threats against police officers, these events increase concerns that the ESS is one of America's critical infrastructures being targeted by domestic and transnational adversaries.

Considering the potential threat against ESS organizations, the EMR-ISAC provides the following ten reminders (i.e., countermeasures) to sector leaders, which were edited from Department of Homeland Security sources:

• Alert all personnel to guard against individuals with apparently legitimate credentials and/or wearing recognizable uniforms to gain access to facilities and sensitive areas.
• Avoid divulging information about organizational capabilities, plans, operations, and training to anyone who is not formally validated or vetted.
• Provide adequate lighting for and maintain control over all entry and exit points.
• Establish and enforce credentialing and badging of full-time, part-time, and volunteer personnel.
• Inspect all parcels and packages immediately upon arrival that are delivered by the postal services, vendors, and visitors.
• Require rigorous inspections, inventorying, and accounting of all sensitive or high-value materials, equipment, systems, and vehicles.
• Conduct regular examinations of the exterior of all buildings including HVAC intakes, utility feeds, storage areas, waste bins, etc., for signs of tampering or suspicious packages.
• Routinely test all primary and back-up internal and external communication systems.
• Implement communication and cyber security procedures to prohibit unauthorized access to data and information.
• Eliminate all sensitive information from organizational webpages and publicly available documents.

Responsibility and Reliability: CIP Ingredients

As a designated critical infrastructure of the United States, and also the protector of other national critical infrastructures, the Emergency Services Sector (ESS) is an indispensable component of America's survivability and continuity. The nation's leaders have recognized the many large and small contributions that sector organizations make to local and regional critical infrastructure protection (CIP). This recognition results from a lot of professional responsibility and reliability demonstrated by first responders everyday throughout America.

Daily emergency operations typically require a huge amount of responsibility and reliability to make multiple complex decisions and to execute successful courses of action. Citizens everywhere, and their critical infrastructures, are immensely dependent on these abilities. Therefore, the EMR-ISAC proposes that responsibility and reliability are essential CIP ingredients.

Since it is widely accepted that homeland security begins at home, the EMR-ISAC asserts that these qualities must first apply internally within the organization before applied externally to the community being served. This pertains particularly to the active protection of the critical infrastructures of an ESS department or agency. Sector capabilities may be degraded if ESS professionals fail to responsibly and reliably protect their personnel, physical assets, and communication/cyber systems (i.e., internal critical infrastructures) from all hazards. In other words, it is a matter of responsibility and reliability for emergency organizations to zealously protect their resources required to deliver mission-essential tasks.

West Nile Virus Threat

West Nile Virus has been found in 47 of the 48 continental states including the District of Columbia, and continues to potentially threaten the health and performance of Emergency Services Sector (ESS) personnel. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) the majority of infected patients will display no symptoms. However, about 20 percent will present symptoms of West Nile fever, which generally last a few days (e.g., fever, headache, tiredness, body aches). Less than 1 percent will contract West Nile disease that may persist for several weeks (e.g., headache, fever, neck stiffness, stupor, disorientation, tremors, etc.). People who are elderly or have underlying health problems are at the greatest risk for becoming severely ill when infected.

There are several things that emergency first responders and their families can do to reduce mosquito bites and the risk of West Nile Virus. For example, keep doors closed, use screens on windows, remove water collecting in outdoor containers, cover exposed skin, and spray clothing and remaining exposed skin with a mosquito repellent containing DEET. The CDC reaffirmed its recommendation for DEET, calling it a "very safe and highly effective repellent option."

Training for Disaster Site Workers

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) recently announced the new Disaster Site Worker Outreach Training Program. It is designed to train workers who provide skilled support in emergency response and recovery operations at disaster sites and raise awareness for workers and employers that pre-incident training is essential for ensuring disaster site worker safety and health. The program includes a 16-hour Disaster Site Worker Course that emphasizes the incident command system, hazard awareness, personal protective equipment, and decontamination.

"It is vitally important that we leverage all available assets to provide a coordinated and effective response to disasters," said Deputy Chief Vickery of the Seattle Fire Department. "Coordination at the community level between emergency services and skilled trades, before an incident occurs, can provide a critical asset to disaster response." Regarding this new training course, an official from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences said that it is an important contribution to protecting responders and improving our national response capacity.

For more information about the Disaster Site Worker Outreach Training Program visit the OSHA website at http://www.osha.gov/fso/ote/training/disaster/disaster.html.