CIP Update
January 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.
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:
Alabama
– Hoover
Arizona – Casa
Grande
California – Mountain View
Colorado –
Littleton
Connecticut –
Norwalk
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 – Richmond
Washington –
Redmond
Wisconsin – Brown
County, Dane County, Milwaukee, Racine County
CIP
Program Activities
January 23, 2008 – Naperville, IL (Overview of CIP
Program)
February 7, 2008 – Montgomery County, TX (Overview
of CIP Program)
March 6, 2008 – Eau Claire County, WI (Initiating
CIP Program)
March 19, 2008 – Santa Rosa County, FL (Initiating
CIP Program)
April 1, 2008 – Arlington County, VA (Initiating
CIP Program)
April 16, 2008 – Dallas, TX (Facilitating Tabletop
Exercise)
April 24, 2008 – Martin County, FL (Initiating CIP
Program)
Public/Private
Partnership – Alamo All-Incident Management Team
The main roadways of the coastal
southwest region of Texas lead to San Antonio.
The southwest area has a population of 700,000; therefore, if
communities were to evacuate for a hurricane, the San Antonio region would have
a vital role in managing a potential critical incident. The State of Texas and its coastal
communities have developed extensive response and recovery plans and have
initiated strategic programs.
For example, the Alamo All-Incident
Management Team is composed of various local, state, and federal agencies
supported by non-profit organizations and several corporations. This partnership group was formed in 2005 and
has been instrumental in planning for, responding to, and recovering from
significant events, such as Hurricane Dean in 2007. In response to the hurricane, Texas
authorities, the San Antonio region, and communities across the coastline
implemented various actions, including redistribution of fueling locations,
making buses available, providing logistics and food to first responders,
ensuring that the elderly and special needs population was accounted for, and
other activities.
For more information on the Alamo
All-Incident Management Team, please contact Captain Tom Polonis, San Antonio
Police, Traffic and Emergency Operations Section at (210) 207-7273.
Public/Private
Partnership – Safeguard
The mission of the CIP Program at
Michigan State University is to facilitate public/private partnerships for
communities across the nation. The goal
is to raise the level of awareness, benefits, and lessons learned from these
partnerships at a national level. For
example, we profile and support other types of partnerships so that you can explore
opportunities that may benefit your agency, business, non-profit organization,
or community.
The Business Executives for National
Security (BENS) is a national, non-profit organization that enhances the
nation’s security from a local, state, regional, and national perspective. Among their many services is the creation of
Business Force organizations in various states.
For example, the Safeguard Iowa Partnership is a voluntary coalition of
the state’s business and government leaders collaborating for preparedness,
mitigation, response, and recovery activities.
They have created a business resource registry, participated in the
State Emergency Operations Center, specialized in public health initiatives,
and developed a strong public outreach.
For more information on BENS, go to www.bens.org; to learn more about the program in Iowa, please go to
www.safeguardiowa.org.
Security
Vulnerability Self-Assessment by CSO
Chief Security Officer (CSO) is an
excellent resource for security, business continuity, crisis management, and
emergency preparedness professions. CSO
produces a professional trade publication, offers an Internet website, hosts
conferences, and is considered a national stakeholder and partner for homeland
security and related issues. To learn
more about CSO, go to www.csoonline.com.
Currently, CSO is offering a free
online Security Vulnerability Self-Assessment Tool, developed by the leader of
Los Alamos National Laboratory's Vulnerability Assessment Team. To rate your program, take this online quiz
that identifies 28 attributes of a flawed security system at the following
website: http://www2.csoonline.com/quizzes/security_assessment/index.php.
To view additional quizzes or tests, please
visit their website and search for the “CSO Quiz Book” on their main webpage.
Natural Disasters Have Quadrupled
The CIP Information Exchange contains
resources for professionals in the public and private sectors on homeland
security, business continuity, crisis management, disaster recovery, emergency
management, security, and related concepts.
Recently, we posted an Oxfam Briefing
Report #180 on “Climate Alarm – Disasters Increases as Climate Changes
Bites”. Natural Disasters have
quadrupled over the last two decades.
The number of people affected by disasters has increased from 174
million in the early 1990’s to 254 million a year by 2004 (Continuity Insights,
2007). In the past 25 years, the number
of flood disasters has increased six-fold (Continuity Insights, 2007). According to Jeremy Hobbs, Oxfam
International Executive Director, “It follows a pattern of more frequent, more
erratic, more unpredictable and more extreme weather events that affect more
people (Continuity Insights, 2007, p.10)”.
The year 2007 was one of climatic
disasters and floods, in addition to small and medium natural disasters
occurring more frequently. Of course,
not all climatic events result in critical incidents, since a community’s
preparedness and response efforts mitigate the impact. Global warming, including severe weather is
leading more agencies, businesses, and communities to incorporate joint
planning. To read the Oxfam report,
download it from the CIP Information Exchange website.
Partnerships
for Crisis Management – Do They Work?
How do you assess a community’s
ability, including agencies, businesses, non-profit organizations and other
stakeholders to come together when a disaster strikes? Are some communities more effective when
responding to a crisis? Is there a
collective desire to work together or in isolation? Most agree that people will rally to offer
assistance when faced with a significant crisis. There have been several examples of people,
businesses, agencies, communities, states, and foreign countries providing aid.
It is important to recognize that a
community-wide approach to problem-solving results in greater efficiency and
effectiveness. However, an essential
component of critical incident preparedness is the human side of the equation. Do a community’s decision-makers have the
ability, desire, and commitment to collaborate?
What is needed are strong individuals willing to make decisions and work
collectively.
In the CIP Program, the social capital
survey measures public and private sector collaboration for critical incident
preparedness and response. The survey is
administered twice (pre-test/post-test) within each community, which may range
in duration from 6 to 12 months. After
the first workshop, community leaders continue meeting and working on joint
planning, exercising, and training.
Therefore, it is predicted that greater cooperation and communication
between stakeholders may increase the ability to plan for, respond to, and recover
from a crisis. The social capital survey
yielded the following results:
o
An increase from 86% to 92% of organizations
who have a critical incident response plan.
o
An increase from 45% to 66% of participation
in joint public/private sector meetings focusing on risk reduction.
o
An increase from 72% to 88% in the adoption
of a common incident command system by the public and private sectors.
o
An increase from 44% to 60% of participation
in joint public/private critical incident exercising during the past two years.
o
An increase from 68% to 81% of communities
adopting a joint public/private sector taskforce focusing on security or
anti-terrorism.
These results illustrate the value of
creating public-private partnerships for joint crisis management for cities,
counties, and regions to enhance the level of preparedness, mitigation,
response, and recovery.
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 recent postings, including:
o Forest Fires – A New Terrorism Threat?
o Oxfam Report – Disasters Escalating
o Homeland Security Equipment Reuse Program
o Integrating Business & Industry into
Public Emergency Support Function #18
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.
Source
Continuity Insights. (November/December 2007). Disasters Escalating, Says Oxfam.
Brit Weber
Program Director
CIP-Community Facilitation
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