Infogram

April 18, 2002

NOTE: This INFOGRAM will be distributed weekly to provide members of the emergency services sector with news and information concerning the protection of their critical infrastructures. For further information please contact the U.S. Fire Administration's Critical Infrastructure Protection Information Center at (301) 447-1325 or e-mail at usfacipc@dhs.gov.

More About Mutual Aid Agreements

The 4 April INFOGRAM contained a brief discussion regarding how mutual aid agreements strengthen critical infrastructure protection (CIP). Since then, the former New York City Fire Commissioner, Thomas Von Essen, testified before a U.S. Senate hearing about the security needs of the nation's communities. In his testimony, Commissioner Von Essen emphasized the importance of "well-executed mutual aid." He stated: "It is imperative that agencies within a given community or region work together so as not to duplicate their capabilities while leaving some needs completely unaddressed." To further accentuate his point, the former commissioner proposed that federal grant funding should be "contingent upon inter-jurisdictional planning" that carefully considers the emergency preparedness goals of participating communities. The reader should recognize that many of these goals directly pertain to CIP.

Many jurisdictions throughout the United States are finalizing mutual aid agreements or disaster assistance pacts. For example, to vastly improve emergency responses and continuity of actions, representatives of the District of Columbia, suburban Maryland, and Northern Virginia recently approved a plan to coordinate their responses to natural disasters or terrorist attacks in the national capital region. On a smaller but still meaningful scale, the towns of St. Albans and Nitro, in West Virginia, developed a sharing program that essentially creates one bigger fire department. These two communities just concluded an aid agreement which includes mutual automatic response to all incidents, long-term cross-training arrangements, and more. These examples of neighbors helping each other are a "win-win" for the people and their critical infrastructures.

Although never attracting much attention or urgency until 9/11, the Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC) is an alternative for state-level leaders to examine. This compact, which is slowly spreading from state to state since its inception in 1993, is an interstate agreement that streamlines the assistance one governor can lend another after a natural disaster or terrorist attack. The essence of the compact, according to the EMAC executive director, is "states helping states...to develop their own capabilities and resources, rather than simply depending on the federal government for assistance." A principal advantage of EMAC is that it untangles numerous legal questions about reimbursement, compensation, injuries, liability, logistical support, etc., that are present at every incident. It is appropriate to note here that FEMA supports the compact because state assets are often closer to the scene and may be able to provide quicker and cheaper assistance.

There should be no doubt that multi-jurisdictional and interagency advance planning and incident response has the tremendous potential to compensate for losses resulting from natural disasters, HazMat accidents, or terrorist attacks. Therefore, the CIPIC recommends that state, county, and local leaders (including chief officers of emergency first responders) know their responsibilities as explained in the Federal Response Plan (FRP: www.fema.gov/r-n-r/frp/frpglnc.htm). Based on current knowledge of the FRP, key leadership should diligently coordinate and cooperate with their multi-jurisdictional emergency management partners and private agencies to negotiate mutual aid agreements or disaster assistance pacts that protect people and critical infrastructures.

Protecting the Family Infrastructure

Sergei Popov, a trained bioweapons scientist from the former Soviet Union, told an audience at a Seattle bioterrorism meeting last week that American citizens have a lot more to worry about than just anthrax or smallpox. He said he wanted the audience to realize just how extensive the threat of bioterrorism is today. Struggling to educate ourselves about the horrors of bioterrorism sometimes creates fear within ourselves and our family members. Too often, we really do not know what to believe or what to do if we hear of an attack.

Current research regarding delivery systems for biochemical agents indicates that water supplies are an unlikely target for bioterrorists. To cause serious illness from water consumption would require truckloads of the biochemical agent. However, the food supply can transmit multiple diseases as it has in the past. And airborne agents can be equally as harmful if not more. So is there anything we can do to protect ourselves and loved ones?

Senator Bill Frist, who is the only medical doctor in the U.S. Senate, shared his insights about preparing for bioterrorism in an article published in the April issue of Good Housekeeping. The senator wrote that vigilance alone is not enough. He encouraged taking steps now to plan for how you and your family would respond if there was a biochemical attack. Senator Frist provided the following basic steps to protect the family infrastructure:

Choose one person who lives out of state to be your family's emergency contact.
Select a family meeting place away from your neighborhood if you cannot go home.
Ensure family members know the address and phone number of this meeting place.
Designate an interior safe room without windows-not in basement-for home shelter.
Turn off the home ventilation system and remain indoors if the attack is outdoors.
Seal windows and doors with tape if the attack is outdoors.
Cover exposed skin and protect your respiratory system with cloth over mouth and nose, especially if outdoors.
Leave the building and avoid contaminated areas if the attack is indoors.
Attempt to turn off the building ventilation system when leaving if attack is indoors.
Call 9-1-1 and report what you are seeing, hearing, smelling, and feeling.
Remove all clothing and leave outdoors when entering an uncontaminated area.
Take an immediate shower and scrub thoroughly with soap and water.
Irrigate your eyes with water.

In a related development, last week sales representatives from several drug companies saturated thirteen large American cities to provide doctors and other health-care workers with information about anthrax as part of a new campaign to heighten national readiness for a bioterrorism attack. This effort was the first phase of a program in which the nation's twenty major drug companies agreed to deploy their 80,000 sales people on behalf of the federal government to educate all doctors and health-care workers to recognize the symptoms they might see in the early stages of a biochemical attack.

Update on Financial Support for First Responders

By the end of April, Congress is expected to react favorably to the Fiscal Year 2002 emergency supplemental budget request that the president submitted in early March. This action, which adds more funds for the current fiscal year, would provide $27.1 billion for the War on Terrorism, homeland security, and economic recovery. The Bush Administration specified that $327 million of the total requested amount will be allocated to FEMA for grants to state and local governments to train and equip personnel of the fire and emergency medical services.

Supporting first responders is a key provision of the president's Fiscal Year 2003 budget submission. Claiming that first responders represent America's first line of defense, President Bush proposed spending $3.5 billion in grants to state and local governments in support of emergency first responders. So far, budget resolutions in the House and Senate track closely with the $3.5 billion request. The appropriations process, just getting started, sets the actual funding levels. Most likely, Congress will complete the funding process by 30 September.

Quest for CIP Excellence

The CIPIC teaches that critical infrastructures are the people, things, or systems that will seriously degrade or prevent survivability and mission success if not intact and operational. In other words, critical infrastructures are those indispensable assets essential for the accomplishment of missions affecting life and property. To ensure the protection of a department's critical infrastructures, the CIPIC also maintains that CIP is primarily chief officer or senior leader business. The delegation of CIP activities to an assistant chief is acceptable and encouraged if the assistant chief is also given the authority to practice the CIP process and implement countermeasures as necessary to protect department personnel, physical entities, and cyber systems. However, regardless of which leader is appointed CIP program manager from among the senior decision-makers of the organization, program success will depend upon four necessary individual qualities: commitment, responsibility, integrity, and accountability. If these attributes define the character of the program manager, then CIP excellence is achievable. Firefighters, paramedics, and the citizens they serve deserve nothing less!

DISCLAIMER OF ENDORSEMENT

The U.S. Fire Administration/EMR-ISAC does not endorse the organizations sponsoring linked Web sites, and does not endorse the views they express or the products/services they offer.

FAIR USE NOTICE

This INFOGRAM may contain copyrighted material that was not specifically authorized by the copyright owner. EMR-ISAC personnel believe this constitutes "fair use" of copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use copyrighted material contained within this document for your own purposes that go beyond "fair use," you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Reporting Notice

DHS and the FBI encourage recipients of this document to report information concerning suspicious or criminal activity to DHS and/or the FBI. The DHS National Operation Center (NOC) can be reached by telephone at 202-282-9685 or by e-mail at NOC.Fusion@dhs.gov.

The FBI regional phone numbers can be found online at www.fbi.gov/contact/fo/fo.htm

For information affecting the private sector and critical infrastructure, contact the National Infrastructure Coordinating Center (NICC), a sub-element of the NOC. The NICC can be reached by telephone at 202-282-9201 or by e-mail at NICC@dhs.gov.

When available, each report submitted should include the date, time, location, type of activity, number of people and type of equipment used for the activity, the name of the submitting company or organization, and a designated point of contact.

Weekly INFOGRAM's are now available as an RSS Feed. More Information »