Contingency plansBetter – and Broader – Contingency Plans
Life, they say, is uncertain. This is why governments and businesses make contingency plans that detail what to do in a disaster and how to handle the unexpected. But some events can be catastrophic across a region, and that calls for a more comprehensive approach.
Life, they say, is uncertain. This is why governments and businesses make contingency plans that detail what to do in a disaster and how to handle the unexpected.
But some events can be catastrophic across a region, and that calls for a more comprehensive approach. That’s where the Department of Homeland Security’s Regional Resiliency Assessment Program (RRAP) comes in. RRAP projects, which typically run for three years, identify vulnerabilities in regional power grids, water treatment systems, transportation networks or other complex critical infrastructure systems. The projects then suggest ways to address the vulnerabilities.
That is difficult, which is one reason why DHS turns to the expertise found in national labs, such as Idaho National Laboratory (INL). Kelly Wilson, a senior critical infrastructure analyst at INL, noted that evaluating the risks in a single water pumping station is relatively simple. Doing the same for a region’s entire water supply isn’t as straightforward.
“When you’re looking at hundreds and hundreds of miles of a system owned and operated by many different people, then it gets more complicated,” she said.
INL saysthat an example of such issues can be seen in an RRAP project Wilson is working on, which is currently underway with the state of Hawaii. Lt. Gov. Josh Green hosted the first Hawaii Maritime RRAP meeting in September, with a focus on preparing for and responding to catastrophes that impact the ability to bring in necessities. Such a scenario could unfold if a Category 3 or higher hurricane struck the port of Honolulu, through which 80 to 90% of the island chain’s goods pass.
“In the end we have to be able to get our infrastructure repaired and get goods and services in,” Green said of such an event.
There are various ways this might be done, such as using other ports, landing goods directly on beaches, or bringing items in by air. But each of these solutions has drawbacks. Other ports, for instance, do not have the crane, rail or warehouse capacity to move in the goods needed daily to sustain millions of people. As for going by air, Hawaii is thousands of miles from land, making transporting enough items by plane extremely difficult.
“It takes a lot of expertise to figure out what the best model is,” Green said.
