The infrastructure of the United States is the foundation of our security, economy and citizen’s way of life. This complex system of interdependent structures, services and goods serves our needs in a seemingly seamless and perpetual manner. The economy and our infrastructures are interwoven together and share unique interdependencies. According to the Department of Homeland Security, more than half of the nation’s gross domestic product is directly represented by our infrastructures and the overwhelming majority of the nation’s infrastructures are owned and controlled by the private sector. These two facts alone illustrate the important tie between economic and infrastructure protection policy and the need to examine the entire system (public and private) when making restoration decisions.
After a disaster or major incident impacting a region’s critical services, our elected officials and emergency managers must make crucial decisions regarding restoration of critical infrastructures on a prioritized basis. Very few, if any, have the knowledge or capability to fully understand the economic and regional impacts of their decisions. It is fairly easy to understand that infrastructures and our economy are directly tied to one another, with business and government depending on critical assets and services to keep the economy running. It is also important to point out that all infrastructures are directly and indirectly linked in many of the same ways and none respect jurisdictional boundaries. Whether it is agriculture, energy or transportation, all are dependent on one another and all experience cascading impacts resulting from disruptions or uninformed restoration decisions. With this in mind, the task of making decisions to determine the criticality of an infrastructure is a daunting task.
Restoration Strategy
When examining restoration priorities, one must understand the immediate needs of the community or region. Life safety, public health and protection issues generally are listed as top priorities immediately after an event, usually during the response and initial recovery. When examining a disaster that has a long term impacts such as a major earthquake or widespread biological or radiological event, longer term priorities must be considered in conjunction with these immediate priorities. These could include: reducing environmental impacts, restoring the economy and re-establishing livable communities. Most decision makers are well aware of the need to consider longer term priorities but when examining the system as a whole it is difficult to understand how the pieces fit together.
Many regions have strategies to rapidly restore lifeline infrastructures which include: electric and gas utilities, water, sewer, communication and other critical services we depend on for life safety and protection. These strategies focus mainly on rapid restoration and generally do not address long term economic, interdependencies and resilience issues. They also mainly focus on point of failure disruptions which often makes restoration more straight forward. The problem with this approach is that interdependencies are not always factored into the decision making process.
Most interdependencies remain undiscovered and very few organizations have an idea of the interdependent relationships their business or infrastructure shares with the rest of the region. Because all infrastructures and sectors are linked physically, virtually or economically, all experience disruptions due to no fault of their own. The success of a business often depends on the reliability of the electrical grid or the assurance of IT systems. Supply chains depend on just in time delivery of goods with very little room for error. Any hiccup in the system causes delays or damage, lost revenue and lost jobs. Many organizations have taken great pains to develop continuity plans and redundant systems, however often times this is not enough. A disruption caused by a disaster, human error or economic slowdown is beyond any one organization’s control. Businesses and governments are at the mercy of each other whether they recognize it or not. They must actively work together to develop a sound understanding of how a region truly functions, this does not happen overnight or by accident.
Building relationships and establishing trust is the key to understanding interdependencies. Establishing trusted relationships that are cross sector and public-private will ultimately shed light on the dependent nature of a business, sector and region. Key service providers must have trusted relationships with governments and other infrastructures they depend on. Supply chains must be analyzed and key partners must work together to improve the efficiency of the system. Relationships must be cross sector and cross jurisdictional in order to truly understand the interdependent relationships of a region. It is through these relationships that information will be provided and shared to benefit the region as a whole. A good example of how relationships improve resilience comes from a major grocery distributor in the Pacific Northwest. The director of loss prevention has developed a policy of providing delivery of any items requested to assist in disaster planning or response based solely on a phone or email request, without any contracts, memorandums of understanding or prior paperwork in place. The only caveat to this is that he will only honor a request if he knows the person asking. In all the years of dealing with these types of informal ad hoc requests, this major distributor has always been able to collect payment after the disaster has ended. This type of resilience only happened because of personal relationships and trust.
Regional Partnerships
The National Infrastructure Protection Plan (NIPP) calls for the development of sector coordination councils as well as the development of regional partnerships to address critical infrastructure/key resource (CI/KR) issues such as identifying interdependencies and developing information sharing strategies. On a regional level there are very little resources available for these activities, and no clear guidance on how to develop regional efforts as described in the NIPP. The reality is that most sector coordination has occurred on a national level and often overlooks the unique needs of individual regions. Some states have attempted to develop sector coordination councils as described in the NIPP, but most do not have the resources or expertise to handle this task. In the end, national sector coordination overlooks the clear need for cross sector collaboration and dialogue on important regional priorities. This type of regional collaboration will help regions develop clear restoration and resilience strategies.
An example of a regional effort aimed at building trust and encouraging information sharing can be found in the northwest. In 2006 the Pacific Northwest Economic Region (PNWER) set up the Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) Taskforce with the goal of improving information sharing between the five northwest states and three western Canadian provinces and federal agencies on CIP issues. At the time very few states/provinces had defined CIP programs and dedicated CIP managers. Jurisdictions participated in quarterly conference calls and several in person meetings to share best practices, explore regional interdependencies and build relationships. Now, after three years, every state and province in the region has a CIP program in place and all but one has a dedicated CIP manager. The CIP Taskforce continues to meet quarterly and members routinely call one another with questions or to share information. This is a good examples of how jurisdictions can work together to build relationships and trust to begin to develop resiliency on a regional level.
When developing a structure for building resilience and making decisions that impact the restoration of the economy and critical services, the need for continuous ongoing information sharing is paramount. As mentioned earlier this can only work if trusted relationships have been established. Through dialogue, stakeholders can work together to mitigate vulnerabilities and address shortfalls in a consistent framework. They can also work together to determine the criticality of a services and prioritize the restoration process. This cannot be done by solely the government, or the private sector alone, but only in a trusted partnership based on the understanding of interdependencies.
One of the primary reasons for the need for this ongoing cross sector dialogue is the fact that the majority of our infrastructure is owned and controlled by the private sector. The private sector is extremely adept at what it does. The government should not try to step in during a disaster and try to duplicate or improve areas outside of its area of expertise. A good example of this comes from King County, Washington. During the H1N1 pandemic in May 2009, Seattle/King County Public Health began to distribute anti-viral mediations. The agency is not a pharmacy and does not have experience dispensing massive quantities of medication. Instead of attempting to take on this incredible duty, the agency simply contracted with the three largest pharmacy chains in the area to distribute the medication. Most involved felt it made sense to have the private sector do what it does best. It also allowed the county public health agency to focus on their areas of expertise and better serve the region.
Many emergency management agencies do not have programs to actively include the private sector in planning or exercises. Ultimately however, the private sector does not always want to help a government test their plan if private companies were not at the table during the development process. The private sector and critical infrastructures must be included in all phases of the process. This will help create a shared sense of ownership and ultimately speed recovery and restoration. Failure to work together will result in stove piped decisions resulting in long term physical and economic distress.
What is needed?
In order to develop a regional process to build resilience and intelligently restore infrastructure, a structure must be created to bring together the disparate public and private groups who keep our economy, critical services and infrastructures running. While the NIPP and several state and local plans call for developing regional partnerships, none lay out a clear strategy that encourages the development of grass-roots partnerships of key stakeholder organizations working with state and federal partners to identify vulnerabilities, impacts, and undertake actions to prevent and mitigate preparedness and resilience shortfalls. The key component to this process is to create opportunities to build trust and dialogue. This simply cannot take place solely on a national level with the largest employers and national infrastructure sector councils. Resilience must be developed from the bottom up, mainly because regional stakeholders rely on one another for survival. Regional economies are driven by regional businesses and infrastructures. Businesses, government, emergency responders and infrastructures are all dependent on regional services and assets. Regions are used to working together on a daily basis to do business and provide services, therefore local perspectives are crucial in determining the criticality of an asset. Because of this, regions must include a cross sector representation of the regional economy in order to make informed decisions regarding restoration of services and infrastructure.
Many regions have trusted third parties who could assist in this process. Several non-profits and non-governmental councils exist that are made up of both public and private sector members. Cross sector regional coordination councils could be developed with the help of these trusted organizations. One of the best ways to begin this process is to work to develop cross sector seminars and workshops to explore interdependencies. This will help develop trust and encourage information sharing between sectors. Stakeholders will begin to understand the value of collaborating and will in turn work to assist in follow on projects and activities related to recommendations from these workshops and exercises. Once organizations begin to understand how their survival depends on other regional players, they will more readily collaborate, communicate and trust one another.
Brandon Hardenbrook is the chief operating officer of the Pacific Northwest Economic Region (PNWER), a statutory cross border public/private partnership consisting of five northwest states and five Canadian jurisdictions. PNWER’s core mission is to address issues that impact the pacific northwest’s regional economy. In 2001 PNWER created the Partnership for Regional Infrastructure Security and in 2006 developed the Center for Regional Disaster Resilience.
