FEMA: 'Fill the gap' - resilience enhances preparedness
INFOGRAM 44-09: Emergency Management and Response Information Sharing and Analysis Center, USA (EMR-ISAC)
Several months ago, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano announced her vision for the nation: “a proud, prepared, and resilient America.” In her explanation, Secretary Napolitano validated the long-standing imperative to implement “resilience” as the goal, metric, and means for achieving and sustaining critical infrastructures and national preparedness.
While attending the recent 2009 Annual Critical Infrastructure Protection Congress, the Emergency Management and Response—Information Sharing and Analysis Center (EMR-ISAC) learned that infrastructure resilience is the ability to reduce the magnitude and/or duration of disruptive events. “It is the ability to anticipate, absorb, adapt to, and/or rapidly recover from a potentially devastating event.” Conference session leaders discussed that infrastructure protection and resilience represent complementary elements of a comprehensive preparedness strategy, but emphasized that resilience has three key abilities:
* Robustness: Maintain critical operations and functions in the face of crisis.
* Resourcefulness: Prepare for, respond to, and manage a crisis or disruption as it unfolds.
* Rapid Recovery: Return to and/or reconstitute normal operations as quickly and efficiently as possible after a disruption or disaster.
Accepting that many catastrophes cannot be prevented, event speakers concluded the best strategy for mitigating the effects of all hazards is to “fill the gap” caused by unprotected infrastructures through the development and maintenance of resilient organizational critical infrastructures.
The EMR-ISAC reconfirmed that the 2009 National Infrastructure Protection Plan (NIPP) underscores the importance of critical infrastructures and key resources (CIKR) to the nation’s survivability and continuity. It clarifies the indispensability of CIKR, such as the Emergency Services Sector (ESS), for the health and safety of the American people as well as the stability and security of the nation's economy. The NIPP further substantiates the necessity for all CIKR, including emergency departments and agencies, to withstand a catastrophe and rapidly return to normal operations in an all-hazards environment.
Chief Officers of first responder organizations understand that without the availability of ESS mission-essential tasks during and after a disaster, there will be a serious reduction in "quality of life” and the potential discontinuation of other local infrastructures that depend on emergency services for survival. Many of these municipal leaders are improving preparedness by ensuring their infrastructure systems can endure all hazards and successfully reconstitute standard services as soon as possible after a man-made or natural disaster.
For further information, contact the Emergency Management and Response- Information Sharing and Analysis Center (EMR-ISAC) at (301) 447-1325 or by e-mail at [email protected].