Intergovernmental Preparation and Coordination

Prior to setting outcomes and goals, establish a planning steering committee to:

• Develop the geographic boundaries of a resilience planning exercise
• Identify potential multijurisdictional stakeholders
• Define resilience and what it means to the stakeholder group engaged in the planning efforts
• Determine critical infrastructures, including associated hazards and threats.

Local governments, Tribes, utility service providers, regional planning organizations, state governments, and federal agencies are all empowered to manage this process and coordinate regional resilience planning activities.

Establishing the geographic boundaries of a resilience planning exercise will help determine the:

• Stakeholders who need to be involved
• Potential hazards
• Types of infrastructure or facilities to be assessed.

The geographic region could include a city, a county, or a federal campus and its surrounding support facilities. It could also be as large as an island, a Tribal territory, state, or an operational region within an agency or organization.

To identify multijurisdictional stakeholders, start with a list of people and organizations providing support roles to operations within the defined geographic area.

Local Representatives
Long-term planning for threats posed by natural or human causes is a core responsibility of local governance. Responsibilities include implementation of building codes, statutes, community plans, and overarching collaboration with public, nonprofit, and private entities. Community resilience depends, in part, on the strength and quality of the relationships between the community and its local leadership as well as state and federal coordination.

Consider the following:

• Elected officials and policymakers
• Tribal leadership
• Community development and land-use planners
• Storm-water managers
• Hazard-mitigation planners
• Natural resource planners
• Floodplain managers
• Municipal engineers
• Emergency managers
• Town administrators
• Drinking and wastewater managers
• GIS and planning technicians.

State Representatives
State government stakeholders can identify hazards related to water quality, river systems, floodplain management, legal status of streams, and geology, such as landslide areas and earthquakes. They also manage public access to open space, parks, wetlands, and sensitive environmental areas. Special aspects of these functions relating to pre- and post-disaster planning include inventories of critical facilities and systems, preparedness programs, grants administration for Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) hazard mitigation funds and Department of Housing and Urban Development community development block grants, and grants administration for FEMA post-disaster recovery funds. States are often the repositories of system data on both natural resources and infrastructure, such as roads, bridges, lakes, and reservoirs.

Consider the following:

• Emergency planners and responders
• Homeland security officers
• Department of local affairs
• Office of disaster recovery and resilience
• State agencies with data, geographic information system (GIS), or planning remits
• Energy and water planning offices
• Natural resource planners.

Federal Regional Representatives
Federal stakeholders primarily provide funding or services and manage systems and operations within numerous communities nationwide. Federal facilities and operations should serve as models for resilience. They should ensure that impacts of potential current and future threats are considered in all stages of facility planning, design, construction, and management. Water, energy, and other resource demands associated with federal activities should also be evaluated and planned for in cooperation with local and regional managers and community officials.

Consider the following:

• Federal agency leadership
• Facility and fleet operators/managers and utility managers for federal installations/campuses/buildings
• Long-range planners for federal installation/campuses/buildings
• Emergency and response management personnel and the Department of Homeland Security
• Federal agency representatives with GIS and data expertise
• Technical experts.

Nongovernment Representatives
Beyond government officials, it may be necessary to engage private and public stakeholders, such as regional planning organizations and utility service providers. It is critical to involve representatives from the utility provider early in the planning process.

Resilience is defined differently in various sectors and stakeholder groups. A clear definition of resilience and understanding of what it means to all stakeholders involved in the planning process will ultimately drive the outcome of the plan.

Gather a list of definitions in advance to guide the conversation. The federal sector will most likely commit to using a definition outlined in an executive order or other mandate, whereas a municipal government may choose to create its own definition of resilience. Understanding the definition and justification for choosing that definition at each level of government is important to goal-setting exercises.

Identifying critical infrastructure within the region will assist with determining interdependencies among jurisdictions as well as prioritizing infrastructure. This may be an exercise the planning steering committee decides to undertake, or it could utilize efforts within the federal or state-specific Department of Homeland Security. Critical infrastructure may be defined as buildings, roadways, waterways, or other systems (e.g., electric grid, water treatment facilities) that support life and operations of a community or organization. Each entity will have a different definition of criticality.

Potential hazards and threats must be identified to understand the impacts to communities and, eventually, mitigation efforts to consider. An all-hazards approach offers a holistic way to incorporate the many needs of various stakeholders and use limited resources during resilience planning. An all-hazards approach would account for:

• Natural hazards resulting from acts of nature and severe weather and future climate variabilities (e.g., severe winter storm, floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, and solar flares)
• Technological hazards resulting from accidents or the failures of systems and structures (e.g., bridge collapse, grid outage)
• Threats or human-caused incidents resulting from the threats or intentional actions of an adversary (e.g., cyber, acts of terror).

Completing an energy profile for critical operations or a community is essential for developing resilient infrastructure strategies. Beyond documenting energy consumption patterns and generation assets, there are benefits associated with documenting existing utility service provider agreements and long-term regional forecasts for meeting needs in changes to population, demographics, and the economy, for example. One of the most important parts of the energy profile is a clear assessment of what kind of energy is used and how it is used within the jurisdiction. Gathering and evaluating this information also provides a baseline for measuring future progress toward energy reliability.

Stakeholders should gather geographic data related to critical infrastructure systems or facilities that provide daily operations, serve the community as a whole, or provide mission-critical services. Desirable information on critical infrastructure could include:

• Data or locations of electric transmission lines, substations, and distribution networks
• Natural gas lines and distribution networks
• Critical community and emergency operations facilities
• Water and wastewater treatment facilities
• Water distribution networks and pumping stations
• Storm-water collection network and treatment/outflow locations
• Fueling station networks
• Fuel types and emergency evacuation routes
• Cellular tower locations, service providers and fiber networks
• Public transportation networks
• Low-income and elderly housing locations
• Emergency shelters, schools, vulnerable populations.

A community or government entity will have different priorities depending on operational needs and critical activities, so this data should be collected with input from the various stakeholders. Some information may be considered sensitive, so access to data or sharing of information may be limited. Understanding where evacuation priorities exist or where energy should be focused due to infrastructure needs will help formulate resilience strategies.