CIP Update

April 18, 2008

This newsletter is for public agencies, businesses, non-governmental organizations, and other stakeholders involved or interested in public-private partnerships for joint emergency preparedness, mitigation, response, and recovery.

 

Michigan State University (MSU) produces the newsletter through the Critical Incident Protocol (CIP)-Community Facilitation Program under a grant awarded by the Training & Exercise Integration Division, Federal Emergency Management Agency, U.S. Department of Homeland Security. This newsletter provides ideas, suggestions, best practices, and lessons learned to establish critical incident protocols using public-private partnerships.

 
Michigan State University through the CIP Program will “enhance cities, counties, and region’s capabilities to prepare for, respond to, and recover from man-made and natural disasters through public and private sector collaboration, communication, and cooperation.”  MSU facilitates public-private partnerships and the CIP Program is free of charge to participating communities.

 

Please visit our website at www.cip.msu.edu for more information about the program.

 

Participating Communities in the CIP Program
The CIP Program has been initiated in 37 communities in 22 states with over 2,800 participants establishing public-private partnerships for joint management of critical incidents. We are looking to work with other cities, counties and regions. Is there a location in the nation that you think may be interested in developing a public-private partnership? If so, please let us know.

 

Currently, we are working with the following communities:
Alabama:  Hoover
Arizona:  Casa Grande
California:  Mountain View
Colorado:  Littleton
Connecticut:  Norwalk

Florida:  Western Panhandle
Illinois:  Lake-Cook Regional, Libertyville
Indiana:  Evansville
Kansas
: 
Douglas County
Maryland:  Annapolis, Carroll County, Rockville
Michigan:  Marquette County, Monroe, Oakland County
Missouri/Illinois:  Gateway Citizen Corps Coalition, St. Louis
Montana:  Lewis & Clark County
Nevada:  Clark County
North Carolina:  Buncombe County, Greensboro
Ohio:  Brooklyn
Pennsylvania:  Allentown, Bethlehem, Northampton County, Perkiomen Valley
Texas:  Dallas
Utah:  Layton, Sandy City
Virginia:  Arlington, Richmond
Washington:  Redmond

Wisconsin:  Brown County, Dane County, Eau Claire County, Milwaukee, Racine County
 
CIP Program Activities
April 16, 2008:  Dallas, TX  (Facilitating Tabletop Exercise)

April 18, 2008:  Live Response, National Terrorism Preparedness Institute
May 7, 2008:  Hamilton County, OH (Overview of the CIP Program)
May 8, 2008:  Douglas County, KS (Facilitating Tabletop Exercise)

May 22, 2008:  Naperville, IL (Initiating the CIP Program)

May 28, 2008:  Superior, WI (Initiating the CIP Program)

June 4, 2008:  Phoenix, AZ (EEI, Business Continuity Conference)

June 11, 2008:  Horry County, SC (Initiating the CIP Program)

June 12, 2008:  Eau Claire County (Risk Assessment Workshop)

June 19, 2008:  Madison, WI (Train-the-trainer on CIP Program)

July 9, 2008:  Outagamie County, WI (Initiating the CIP Program)

July 10, 2008:  Winnebago County, WI (Initiating the CIP Program)

 

Welcome Arlington County, VA to the CIP Program

Please welcome Arlington County to the CIP Program.  Located across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C., Arlington County is home to the Pentagon, a large, diverse business community, progressive, historical residential neighborhoods, and a commonwealth of contemporary and committed civic involvement.

 

The workshop on April 1st began with various officials expressing their gratitude to attendees for collaborating on joint crisis management before an audience of 96 community public and private sector stakeholders.   Local, county, state, and federal agency officials sat down with business executives, non-governmental leaders, and others to work through crisis scenarios on risk assessments, using the Incident Command System/Unified Command, and other tasks.  The group finished the day with identifying which issues were important to their organizations and how to enhance the partnership through joint planning, training, and exercising.  A long list of suggestions and practices was compiled and will be used to develop an agenda for the next year.

 

The CIP staff enjoyed working with these enthusiastic participants to better prepare for, respond to, and recover from critical incidents.

 

Free Resource Guide for Protection of Critical Infrastructure

This 118 page guide is easy to use, has numerous public and private sector resources, and was developed by public and private sector professionals from 17 critical infrastructure and key resource sectors.  It is not intended to be all-inclusive and was designed to provide quick, comprehensive guidelines.  The Critical Infrastructure Resource Guide is provided by the American Society of Industrial Security (ASIS), the world’s largest association of security professionals.  To download a copy, please go to the ASIS website at http://www.asisonline.org.  On the main page, look for Hot Topics, then Critical Infrastructure and scroll down to select the Critical Infrastructure Resource Guide.

 

Currently, the ASIS Critical Infrastructure Working Group will be updating the resource guide over the next couple of months.

 

Best Practices on Public-Private Partnerships – Community Efforts

One community which recently participated in the CIP Program identified its agenda for the future.  After the initial workshop where several suggestions were presented and subsequent follow-up meetings to redefine opportunities, they developed the following agenda:

 

Education

o       Provide education and support to local businesses through training and templates

o       Increase awareness of project activities

 

Community-Wide Planning

o       Involve private sector in community-wide emergency and mitigation planning

o       Develop a template for integrating the business community into the Incident Command System

o       Assess the idea of businesses assigned to the public sector Emergency Operations Center

o       Analyze how public policy should be changed to increase response and recovery effectiveness

o       Share public sector policies and plans with the private sector

 

Resource Linkages

o       Establish a resource database

o       Identify resource gaps and priorities

o       Develop private-to-private and private-to-government Memorandums of Understanding (MOU) for resource management

o       Develop communication systems and networks

 

Similar to other communities which collaborate, they discovered that within the business community there are various levels of emergency preparedness ranging from no critical incident response plans to highly extensive business continuity and disaster recovery processes.  Additionally, the group discussed how to minimize the number of meetings, use the Internet for communication, place the project under the umbrella of an existing organization, and how to ensure that the resource inventory becomes a “living database”.

 

Best Practice / Access to Disaster Areas and Credentialing

Recently, the CIP staff presented at the Southern Gas Association’s Natural Disaster Emergency Management Workshop on public/private partnerships for joint crisis management.  Participants at the workshops came from across the nation to learn some of the latest initiatives, share information with other professionals, and increase their networking.  There was a cross-representation of various utility companies.

 

Following are some of the topics of importance, and not surprisingly, these same issues are being discussed by many organizations, agencies, businesses, and communities around the nation.  As you know, utility companies respond to man-made and naturals disasters and critical incidents of various size, complexity, and duration.  The topics included:

 

o       Ensure family preparedness while employees are responding to emergencies (are your first responders’ families prepared, as well?).

o       Create credentialing for utility employees to be allowed to cross police, fire, and military lines to enter disaster sites to repair and restore power.

o       Some utility employees were previously detained at roadblocks and not allowed to enter the disaster area until company supervisors resolved the matter.

o       Go back to the basics and review company plans and procedures to ensure they are accurate, current, and relevant.

o       Adopt a formalized risk assessment process to ensure the business mission and goals are attained.

o       How can the private sector, such as utility companies and others assist in after-damage assessments to ensure accurate information is shared between public and private sectors?

o       Look to create mutual aid assistance agreements between private-to-private and private-to-public sectors for emergency response.

 

The CIP Partnership Model – Creating a Public/Private Partnership

Michigan State University developed the CIP Partnership Model to facilitate partnerships between the public sector (police, fire, EMS, health, emergency management, homeland security, public works, and other stakeholders) with the private sector (businesses and non-governmental organizations) to collaborate on how to better respond to, prepare for, and recover quicker from the impact of critical incidents. 

 

The CIP Partnership Model includes the following six steps:

1.      Identify public and private sector stakeholders to co-share leadership.

2.      Ask leaders to bring others to the table.

3.      Identify common issues on emergency preparedness for collaboration.

4.      Identify new resources in the community to mitigate the impact of critical incidents.

5.      Determine the challenges that participating organizations encounter.

6.      Create sustainability in the partnership by conducting a needs assessment, setting goals, and scheduling tasks performance.

 

To learn more about the CIP Partnership Model you may download an explanation of the model at www.cip.msu.edu or email Brit Weber, weberbr@msu.edu who will send you the document.

 

Building Resilience to Natural Disasters: A Framework for Private Sector Engagement

The World Economic Forum has released a report, which is part of a series of multi-stakeholder projects on the private sector’s role in building resilience for crisis management.  This 20-page document provides examples from across the globe on how the private sector is implementing various initiatives to reduce the impact of natural disasters. 

 

One of the key points in the report is that the number of disasters has grown from an average of 150 a year in 1980 to over 450 a year.  According to the U.S. National Institute of Building Sciences, approximately 90% of disaster-related expenditures are for relief and reconstruction.  Further, for every dollar invested in prevention, four dollars can be saved in disaster response costs (World Economic Forum, 2008).

 

To read the report, you can go to our CIP Information Exchange website and download it.  To enter the website, see the directions listed below.

 

Recent Postings to the CIP Information Exchange Website
The CIP Information Exchange website is a large database for public and private sector professionals interested in homeland security, emergency preparedness, business continuity, disaster recovery, and emergency management.  It also contains research publications, government documents, news items, and more.

 

To enter the CIP Information Exchange website, please go to https://angel.msu.edu and enter “msu.msu@angel” in the User/NetID and “partnership” (both without quotation marks) as the password to log in. On the next page, please click on CIP, which launches the main menu.

 

Located in the folder "Bulletin Board - Information for all Communities" are a variety of recent postings, including:

o       Resource Guide for Critical Infrastructure Protection (ASIS)

o       Building Resilience to Natural Disasters: A Framework for the Private Sector

o       Economic Costs of Terrorism (Copenhagen Consensus Center)

o       Community Emergency Planning Considerations (EMR-ISAC)

 

There are numerous other resources located on the website. To locate a specific topic, utilize the "search" function. 

 

Past Newsletters
If you are interested in viewing past CIP Update newsletters, please go to www.cip.msu.edu and select "Newsletters" from the main menu.

 

Closing
If you have any topics and/or ideas for a future CIP Update newsletter, please contact Brit Weber at weberbr@msu.edu or (517) 355-2227 or other MSU staff members. About every three weeks you will receive this newsletter via email. If you no longer wish to be on this list, please reply to this email.

 

Disclaimer
The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security or Michigan State University.

 

Sources

World Economic Forum.  (January 2008).  Building Resilience to Natural Disasters: A Framework for Private Sector Engagement.  Retrieved from https://angel.msu.edu, which is the CIP Information Exchange website.

 

 

Brit Weber
Program Director
CIP-Community Facilitation Program
School of Criminal Justice
Michigan State University
1407 S. Harrison Rd., 335 Nisbet Bldg.
East Lansing, MI 48823
Work:  (517)  355-2227   Cell:  (517) 206-1640
weberbr@msu.edu
Please visit our website:  http://www.cip.msu.edu