CIP Update
December 07, 2007
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.
Through the CIP Program, Michigan State University facilitates public-private partnerships for cities, counties, and regions across the nation. 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 34 communities
in 21 states with over 2,600 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:
Allentown, PA /
Annapolis, MD / Bethlehem, PA / Brooklyn, OH / Brown County, WI / Buncombe
County, NC / Carroll County, MD / Casa Grande, AZ / Clark County, NV / Dallas, TX / Dane County, WI / Douglas County, KS /
Evansville, IN / GCCC-St. Louis, MO / Greensboro, NC / Hoover, AL / Lake-Cook
Corridor, IL / Layton, UT / Lewis & Clark County, MT / Libertyville, IL /
Littleton, CO / Marquette County, MI / Milwaukee, WI / Monroe County, MI /
Mountain View, CA / Northampton County, PA / Norwalk, CT / Oakland County, MI /
Perkiomen Valley, PA / Redmond, WA / Racine, WI / Richmond, VA / Rockville, MD
/ Sandy City, UT
Telecommunications
During Emergencies
For first responders and stakeholders, it can be a
challenge and frustrating during a crisis when using technology to
communicate. With our reliance on
telecommunications, the availability of services can sometimes be delayed,
intermittent, or unavailable. For
example, during Hurricane Katrina in 2005, there were damaged and inoperable
networks that affected more than 3 million customer phone lines, over 1,000
cell sites, 38 of the 911 centers, and 33 central offices (Johnson, 2007).
A resource for the public and private sector is the
National Communications System (NCS), which works with the telecommunications
industry. NCS and industry leaders have established guidelines for
telecommunication availability for federal, state, local, and tribal
governments, and selected industry entities during emergencies. Among NCS programs, are the Government Emergency
Telecommunications Service (GETS) and the Wireless Priority Service (WPS)
initiatives.
GETS
is an emergency calling card service that can be used from virtually any
telephone to provide priority service for emergency calls. GETS users may be federal,
state, local, or tribal government, critical infrastructure industry sectors,
or non-profit organizations that perform critical National Security and
Emergency Preparedness (NS/EP) functions.
The other initiative, WPS is an add-on subscription on a per cell phone
basis, depending on availability of existing WPS networks. Accessibility of WPS is limited to key federal,
state, local, and tribal government, and critical infrastructure personnel.
According
to NCS representatives, GETS and WPS were used during the Minneapolis bridge
collapse (08-2007), Virginia Tech shootings (04-2007), Hawaii earthquake
(10-2006), and Florida storms (02-2006) (Johnson, 2007).
For
more information on these programs, go to http://www.ncs.gov.
Solutions
for Safer Communities (BJA)
For the criminal justice community is the upcoming
‘Getting it Right: Solutions for Safer Communities – 2008 BJA Regional
Conferences’ offered by the Bureau of Justice Assistance. These regional meetings will focus on key
issues in law enforcement and criminal justice, including violent crime, campus
safety, intelligence led policing, information sharing, strategic planning,
managing grants, and more.
Four conferences are being held in Salt Lake City,
UT; Hartford, CT; Indianapolis, IN; and Atlanta, GA during January-March
2008. For more information, go to http://www.bjaregionalmeetings.com.
Educational
Opportunity – Homeland Security Studies
The School of Criminal Justice, Michigan State
University has a national and international reputation due to its academic
programs, research, and outreach services.
MSU continues to lead in a multitude of areas through various
initiatives, collaborations, and partnerships on a local, state, national, and
international level.
The importance of homeland security continues to
grow, and MSU offers the Certificate in Homeland Security Studies, which is
available on-line and in classroom. The
certificate has three courses, which are Homeland Security, Terrorism, and
Public-Private Partnerships in Emergency Preparedness and Homeland
Security.
If you are looking to enhance your education,
network with other professionals, and participate in a challenging and rewarding
program, please go to http://homelandsecurity.msu.edu.
Prepared
Versus Unprepared
One of the challenges in the CIP Program, when
facilitating public-private partnerships for joint crisis management, is presenting
information relevant to public and private sector stakeholders. For instance, how concerned should a police,
fire, health, or emergency management official be with the preparedness level
of the business community? Most would
agree that private sector’s ability to respond to, prepare for, and recover
from a man-made or natural disaster is of critical interest to all facets of
government.
A study was completed a few years ago on measuring the
crisis readiness of Fortune 500 businesses by the University of Southern
California’s Center for Crisis Management. The results of the study provided a baseline
of comparison of businesses that were prepared versus unprepared. For example, the average crisis-prepared
business experienced 21 emergencies versus 33 by unprepared businesses. Additionally, the average return on assets
for proactive companies was six percent while unprepared businesses had a three
percent return. Also, the average
lifespan of a prepared business was 83 years while less prepared businesses had
an average of 67 years (Mitroff & Alpasian, 2003).
The businesses that were proactive in mitigating
the impact of a crisis initiated the following actions:
o
Anticipating/being prepared for a wide variety of crises
o
Picking up/amplifying those early warning signals that
accompany all crises
o
Forming and training crisis management teams
o
Instituting damage control mechanisms in advance of the
occurrence of crises to limit their spread
o
Auditing one’s corporate culture for values, which hinder
effective crisis management
o
Including diverse stakeholders in one’s crisis plans and
procedures
Collaborations between government and the business
community could use these concepts as talking points to assist companies in
enhancing their level of emergency preparedness.
Resource – Critical Infrastructure Protection
At times, there appears to be a wide variety of
informational sources available to specific sectors, disciplines, or
professions for protecting critical infrastructure. Stakeholders who are responsible for critical
infrastructure protection generally look for sources within their industry or
profession to help them manage and maintain their services. Additionally, some stakeholders are
collaborating with other sectors and industries on identifying the
interdependencies that cross over.
A resource of important information for public and
private sector professionals is the Emergency Management and Response
Information Sharing and Analysis Center (EMR-ISAC). One of their services, is the weekly EMR-ISAC
Infogram, which provides clear, concise, and comprehensive information for
those responsible for critical infrastructure protection. For example, in the December 06, 2007, online
newsletter is information on:
o
Emergency Services Sector – A Soft Target
o
Rural Preparedness Domestic Consortium
o
Public Health Emergency Response
o
Critical Infrastructure Protection Program (DVD)
Many of the topics in the newsletter are applicable
to public and private sector personnel.
For more information, go to http://www.usfa.dhs.gov/fireservice/subjects/emr-isac/index.shtm.
Recent Postings to the CIP Information Exchange Website
The CIP Information Exchange
website is a vast 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 postings, including the following:
o Cybercrime: The Next Wave – The 2007 Trends Report
(McAfee)
o Mission Changes for Fusion Centers
o Creating a Regional Taskforce
o Exercising Interdependencies (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
Johnson, Lee. (Oct.
19, 2007). Communications Capabilities
During an Emergency. Presented at the
Regional Infrastructure Protection Conference, Denver, CO.
Mitroff, I.I. & Alpasian, M.C. (April, 2003). Preparing for Evil. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved
on 12-07-07 from http://harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu/hbsp/hbr/articles/article.jsp?ml_action=get-article&articleID=R0304J&ml_page=1
Brit Weber
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
Visit our website: http://www.cip.msu.edu