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A p blication of e.Republic
                                                      publication e.Repu c
                                                                         p




                                                             January/February 2011




                   T H E FA C E O F

TERROR                DOMESTIC THREATS HAVE FORCED
                        MESTIC
                   LAW ENFORCEMENT TO THE ‘HOME GAME’
                                                   inside:
                                                   Are we underestimating
                                                   the cyber-threat?
Issue 1 — Vol. 6




                                                   The emergency manager
                                                   with multiple hats.
Knowledge is Power.
Knowledge Center™ is Fusion.
Use Knowledge Center™ to promote a virtual collaborative environment
to facilitate cooperation and provide instant access to information—anytime, anywhere.


                                                Common Operating Picture (COP)
Interoperability

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                                                  Situational Awareness



Incident Management Software Solutions
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Critical Infrastructure/Key Resources (CI/KR)    Hazard Vulnerability Assessment (HVA)     Secure, tiered access control
Situation Reporting (SITREP)                     Patient/Triage tracking                   Dynamic, configurable reporting
Geographic Information Systems (GIS)             Hospital Available Beds (HAvBED)          Interoperable with CADs
“The Knowledge Center’s ‘common operating
 picture’ is something that every response
 organization should strive for.”
             — Commander Timme, US Coast Guard




               “I think this type of information sharing
                 is an example of how it should be.”
                         — Lieutenant Zupanc, Ohio Fusion Center




                                 Don’t just report.
                                 Communicate.
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    Contents                                                       28
                                                                   The Face
                                                                   of Terror
                                                                   The localized face of terrorism
                                                                   has forced law enforcement
                                                                   to the ‘home game.’



    FEATURES

    22
    The Looming
    Cyber-Threat
    Underestimating the cyber-threat to
    our nation’s critical infrastructure would
    prove perilous.


    34
    Donning Multiple Hats
    Should the role of emergency
    manager be a full-time job or can the
    duties be shared?



    DEPARTMENTS

    38
    PUBLIC SAFETY AND SECURITY

    Demystify the Message
    Understanding social science research
    on emergency warnings is key to
    developing alert and warning plans
    that grab the public’s attention.


    42
    DISASTER RECOVERY

    Recovery Doesn’t
    Just Happen
    Most communities lack disaster recovery
    planning experience, but examples of
    effective efforts provide lessons learned
    and help create best practices.


    44
    TRAINING AND EDUCATION

    ‘Prepared not Scared’
    A partnership between the Girl Scouts of
    the USA and federal agencies seeks to help
    establish a culture of preparedness.
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                  All other company and product names are trademarks or service marks of their respective owners.
Group Publisher:                    Don Pearson dpearson@govtech.com
                                                                                                            Founding Publisher:                 Tim Karney tkarney@govtech.com


    Contents                                                                                                VP Emergency Management/
                                                                                                            Homeland Security:

                                                                                                            Publisher:
                                                                                                                                                Martin Pastula mpastula@govtech.com
                                                                                                                                                (916) 932-1497
                                                                                                                                                Scott Fackert sfackert@govtech.com
                                                                                                                                                (916) 765-1875
                                                                                                            Executive Editor:                   Steve Towns stowns@govtech.com

                                                                                                            EDITORIAL
                                                                                                            Editor:                             Jim McKay jmckay@govtech.com
                                                                                                            Associate Editor:                   Elaine Pittman epittman@govtech.com
                                                                                                            Managing Editor:                    Karen Stewartson kstewartson@govtech.com
                                                                                                            Assistant Editor:                   Matt Williams mwilliams@govtech.com
                                                                                                            Features Editor:                    Andy Opsahl aopsahl@govtech.com
                                                                                                            Chief Copy Editor:                  Miriam Jones mjones@govtech.com
                                                                                                            Copy Editor:                        Sarah Rich srich@govtech.com
                                                                                                            Staff Writers:                      Hilton Collins hcollins@govtech.com
                                                                                                                                                Corey McKenna cmckenna@govtech.com
                                                                                                                                                Lauren Katims lkatims@govtech.com

                                                                                                            DESIGN
                                                                                                            Creative Director:                  Kelly Martinelli kmartinelli@govtech.com
                                                                                                            Senior Designer:                    Crystal Hopson chopson@govtech.com
                                                                                                            Graphic Designer:                   Michelle Hamm mhamm@govtech.com
                                                                                                            Illustrator:                        Tom McKeith tmckeith@govtech.com
                                                                                                            Production Director:                Stephan Widmaier swidm@govtech.com
                                                                                                            Production Manager:                 Joei Heart jheart@govtech.com

                                                                                                            PUBLISHING
                                                                                                            VP of Strategic Accounts:           Jon Fyffe jfyffe@govtech.com
                                                                                                            VP Bus. Development:                Tim Karney tkarney@govtech.com
                                                                                                                                                East
                                                                                                            Regional Sales Directors:
                                                                                                            East                                Leslie Hunter lhunter@govtech.com
                                                                                                            West, Central                       Shelley Ballard sballard@govtech.com
                                                                                                            Account Managers:
                                                                                                            East                            Melissa Cano mcano@govtech.com
                                                                                                            West, Central                   Erin Gross egross@govtech.com
©ISTOCKPHOTO.COM/ THEREALDARLA                                                                              Business Development Director: Glenn Swenson gswenson@govtech.com
                                                                                                            Bus. Dev. Managers:             Lisa Doughty ldoughty@govtech.com
                                                                                                                                            John Enright jenright@govtech.com
DEPARTMENTS CONTINUED                                                                                                                       Pat Hoertling phoertling@govtech.com
                                                                                                                                            Kevin May kmay@govtech.com

48                                                 16                                                       Regional Sales Administrators: Sabrina Shewmake sshewmake@govtech.com
                                                                                                                                            Christine Childs cchilds@govtech.com
                                                                                                            National Sales Administrator:   Jennifer Valdez jvaldez@govtech.com
PUBLIC HEALTH                                      EM Bulletin                                              Director of Marketing:          Andrea Kleinbardt akleinbardt@govtech.com
Extinguish or Evacuate?                                                                                     Sr. Dir. of Custom Events:
                                                                                                            Dir. of Custom Events:
                                                                                                                                            Whitney Sweet wsweet@govtech.com
                                                                                                                                            Lana Herrera lherrera@govtech.com
What health risks do fire extinguishers pose to a
health-care facility?                              18                                                       Custom Events Managers:         Tanya Noujaim tnoujaim@govtech.com
                                                                                                                                            Katey Lamke klamke@govtech.com
                                                                                                                                            Gina Fabrocini gfabrocini@govtech.com
                                                   Major Player                                             Custom Events Coordinator:      Megan Turco mturco@govtech.com
                                                                                                            Custom Events Admin.:           Sharon Remeiro sremeiro@govtech.com
                                                   James Demby, senior technical and policy
52                                                 adviser and program manager, FEMA National
                                                                                                            Dir. of Custom Media:
                                                                                                            Custom Media Editor:
                                                                                                                                            Stacey Toles stoles@govtech.com
                                                                                                                                            Emily Montandon emontandon@govtech.com
PUBLIC SAFETY AND SECURITY                         Dam Safety Program                                       Sr. Custom Media Writer:        Jim Meyers jmeyers@govtech.com
                                                                                                            Custom Media Writer:            Rohish Lal rlal@govtech.com
The Impact of IPAWS                                                                                         Custom Media Proj. Asst.:       Courtney Hardy chardy@govtech.com
                                                                                                            Dir. of Web Products and Svcs.: Vikki Palazzari vpalazzari@govtech.com
This modernized national alert system is
accessible to local emergency managers.
                                                   54                                                       Web Services Manager:           Peter Simek psimek@govtech.com
                                                                                                            Custom Web Products Manager: Michelle Mrotek mmrotek@govtech.com
                                                   Products                                                 Web Advertising Manager:
                                                                                                            Web Services/Project Manager:
                                                                                                                                            Julie Dedeaux jdedeaux@govtech.com
                                                                                                                                            Adam Fowler afowler@govtech.com
                                                                                                            Subscription Coordinator:       Eenie Yang subscriptions@govtech.com

REST OF THE BOOK
                                                   56                                                       CORPORATE
                                                                                                            CEO:                                Dennis McKenna dmckenna@govtech.com
8                                                  Eric’s Corner                                            Executive VP:
                                                                                                            Executive VP:
                                                                                                                                                Don Pearson dpearson@govtech.com
                                                                                                                                                Cathilea Robinett crobinet@centerdigitalgov.com
Letters/Calendar                                   Politics Is Unavoidable                                  CAO:
                                                                                                            CFO:
                                                                                                                                                Lisa Bernard lbernard@govtech.com
                                                                                                                                                Paul Harney pharney@govtech.com
                                                                                                            VP of Events:                       Alan Cox acox@govtech.com
                                                                                                            Chief Marketing Officer:            Margaret Mohr mmohr@govtech.com

10                                                 58                                                       Chief Content Officer:              Paul W. Taylor ptaylor@govtech.com


Point of View                                      Last Word                                                Government Technology’s Emergency Management (ISSN 2156-2490) is published by
                                                                                                            e.Republic Inc. © 2011 by e.Republic Inc. All rights reserved. Opinions expressed by
                                                                                                            writers are not necessarily those of the publisher or editors.
Reaching Younger Audiences                         Responsible Social Media
                                                                                                            Article submissions should be sent to the attention of the Managing Editor.
                                                                                                            Reprints of all articles in this issue and past issues are available (500 minimum).
                                                                                                            Please direct inquiries for reprints and licensing to Wright’s Media: (877) 652-5295,
                                                                                                            sales@wrightsmedia.com.


12                                                                                                          Subscription Information: Requests for subscriptions may be directed to subscription
                                                                                                            coordinator by phone or fax to the numbers below. You can also subscribe online at
                                                                                                            www.emergencymgmt.com.

In the News                                                                                                 100 Blue Ravine Road, Folsom, CA 95630
                                                                                                            Phone: (916)932-1300 Fax: (916)932-1470
                                                                                                            www.emergencymgmt.com
                                                         The inside pages of this publication are printed
                                                                                                                   A publication of
6                                                  e     on 80 percent de-inked recycled fiber.
Emergency Management Magazine Jan Feb 2011
Reader Feedback

                                                                      personnel and other emergency respond-
                                                                      per                                                       attack does happen, those will be a hot commodity,
                                                                       ers involved in distributing countermea-                 and I wouldn’t put it past opportunistic criminals to
                                                                       sures should be offered the anthrax vaccine
                                                                       sur                                                      see the benefit of acquiring a stockpile of antibiotics.”
                                                                        beforehand since personal protective equip-
                                                                        bef                                                                                                 — Zach Falb
                                                                        ment (PPE) is not foolproof. Have the USPS
                                                                        me
                                                                         workers volunteering in these distribution
                                                                         wo                                                     Enhancing Rail Security
                                                                         plans been informed that six out of nine
                                                                         pla                                                       An online comment in response to the November/
                                                                         HAZMAT experts became infected at the
                                                                         HA                                                     December 2010 article Safeguarding the Rails points
                                                                          Hart Senate Office Building attack in 2001
                                                                          Ha                                                    out an additional method for augmenting railroad
                                                                          despite using PPE? Do these USPS person-
                                                                          de                                                    security.
                                                                          nel understand that the anthrax vaccine is
                                                                          ne
                                                                          available and when given before exposure/
                                                                          av                                                       “One group which should not be overlooked is
                                                                 infection, the vaccine is the best protection against          the legion of rail fans across the country; not only
                                                                 both antibiotic-resistant and antibiotic-sensitive             do these people often have detailed knowledge of
Letter Carrier Safety                                            anthrax? I wonder if the USPS volunteers under-                rail systems, they’re also frequently indulging in
   In response to the cover story, Marshaling the                stand the risks involved in participating as couri-            their hobby of train watching. As such they’re a
Postal Service, in the November/December 2010                    ers of antibiotics without being first immunized.              perfect force multiplier for enhancing security.
issue, online readers discussed the possible health and          Incidentally about half a million doses of Strate-             Some railroads have already created ‘rail fan secu-
safety issues for the letter carriers involved in distrib-       gic National Stockpile anthrax vaccine is being                rity’ programs, actively recruiting rail fans and giv-
uting medical countermeasures following a biological             destroyed each month. All this begs the question:              ing them an 800 number to call in the event they
attack involving anthrax on a metropolitan area.                 Why not proactively vaccinate those responding to              see something suspicious, or even something like
                                                                 an anthrax attack with short-dated vaccine rather              a minor equipment defect. Expansion of such pro-
   “The plan to use USPS letter carriers to dispense             than allowing those doses to go to waste?”                     grams would be a great, and inexpensive, way to
antibiotics to civilians at risk during a confirmed                                             — Thomas K. Zink, M.D.          enhance rail security.”
wide-area anthrax attack assumes the anthrax                                                                                                                                     — Tom S.
strain used in the attack is antibiotic-sensitive. This             “What I’m curious about is the safety and secu-             Your opinions matter to us. Send letters to the editor at
assumption may be a faulty one since we now know                 rity of the letter carriers when delivering antibiot-          editorial@govtech.com. Please list your telephone number
                                                                                                                                for confirmation. Publication is solely at the discretion of the
that antibiotic-resistant anthrax exists. And even if            ics. What precautions are being planned if someone             editors. Emergency Management reserves the right to edit
the anthrax used is sensitive to antibiotics, USPS               wants to steal the antibiotics they’re delivering? If an       submissions for length.


Emergency Management Events
14-18 February                         15-16 February                            22-25 February                        3 March                                             7-11 March
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                                         and free certified training for           and sustaining our nation’s               floods, earthquakes, terror                      hardware, applications, interop-
                                         law enforcement professionals.           ability to plan for, respond to           events — facing the Seattle area                erability and integration that
                                                                                  and recover from disasters and            and address best practices in                   will make your systems more
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8
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      n
Point of View

                                  Reaching Younger Audiences
                                    Creating the “culture of preparedness” that the emergency         at that age,” said Patti Thompson, communications manager
                                  management community talks about can only truly be achieved         for IEMA. “So it just seemed like the video game route was
                                  by making disaster preparedness second nature to citizens.          something new to do, a new direction to go.”
                                  When I think about instilling lessons in people’s lives, that         Thompson said the agency was going to work with the Illi-
                                  means starting when they are young and ingraining them with         nois State Board of Education to get notices sent to teachers
                                  the necessary skills and knowledge.                                 to make them aware of the game, with the goal of teachers
                                    However, reaching younger audiences can be difficult.             implementing it into their curriculum.
                                  Although many children are eager to learn about disasters             IEMA seeks to keep children’s interest through an online
                                  — images of snowstorms, tornadoes, etc. can leave a lasting         leader board that tracks players’ best times. “They play it
                                  impression — the message on how they can prepare not only           through once, and it’s pretty much a learning experience the
                                  themselves but also their families is something that needs to       first time through,” Thompson said. “Then they can play it
                                  be reiterated. But finding the best way to repeat that message      over and over, and there’s a clock that times how long it takes
                                  in a fun yet informative way can be difficult, and that’s why the   them [to complete] each segment.”
                                  message should be taught through means that children enjoy            Illinois isn’t the only agency hoping to spread prepared-
                                  and find engaging — like video games.                               ness messages through video games. The American College of


                                  When I think about instilling lessons in people’s lives, that means starting when they are young
                                  and ingraining them with the necessary skills and knowledge.

                                    In November 2010, the Illinois Emergency Management               Emergency Physicians is using a U.S. Department of Home-
                                  Agency (IEMA) released The Day the Earth Shook, a video             land Security grant to develop the video game Disaster Hero.
   Best Public Safety/Trade
                                  game that uses an earthquake scenario to demonstrate the            The project is expected to be completed this year, and will focus
    2009 Maggie Award
                                  need for a disaster supply kit as well as to identify safe loca-    on what to do before, during and after a disaster. According to
                                  tions in a building during an earthquake. To make it accessible     a statement, the game will target multiple audiences, including
                                  to everyone in the state, IEMA posted the game on its Ready         children, early teens, parents, caregivers and teachers.
                                  Illinois website, www.ready.illinois.gov. The Day the Earth           By packaging the disaster preparedness message in a form
                                  Shook targets middle schoolers, an age group for which the          that children already enjoy, IEMA and the American College
                                  agency lacked a preparedness messaging program.                     of Emergency Physicians are on the right path to starting the
2010 Magazine of the Year
      Top 3 Finalist                “We knew that we needed to do something that would be             culture of preparedness for younger generations. k
  Less Than $2 Million Division   fun, but they’re too old for coloring books and activity books




  Elaine Pittman
  Associate Editor



                                           Questions or comments? Please give us your input by contacting our editorial department at editorial@govtech.com,
                                           or visit our website at www.emergencymgmt.com.


  10                                      L E A D , F O L L O W O R G E T O U T O F T H E W AY.
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                                             LEARN MORE AT                                      OR CALL
                                             amuonline.com/public-safety                        877.777.9081

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In the News
                                            Nearly a decade after the 9/11
                                            terrorist attacks, in December
                                            2010 counterterrorism officials
                                            said they had made it easier to
                                            add individuals’ names to the
                                            terrorist watch list. The second
                                            iteration of the Terrorist Identities
                                            Datamart Environment was
                                            scheduled to be launched in
                                            January — the first version went
                                            live in 2005 — and new criteria
                                            says that a credible, single-
                                            source tip can lead to a name
                                            being added to the watch list.
                                            Approximately 440,000 people
                                            are on the list, which is a 5
                                            percent increase over 2009, The
                                            Washington Post reported.

                                            Although a majority of the names
                                            on the watch list are of non-U.S.
                                            citizens, law enforcement and
                                            intelligence agencies are
                                            ramping up efforts to thwart an
PHOTO COURTESY OF ANDREA BOOHER/FEMA




                                            increasing issue: terrorist threats
                                            from U.S. citizens. The issue is
                                            explored in this month’s cover
                                            story on page 28.




                                       12
Emergency Management Magazine Jan Feb 2011
ADVERTISEMENT




   Managed Emergency
   Communications Systems
   Functional Requirements for Next Generation MNS




Berkly Trumbo, Siemens Industry Inc.             considering a holistic approach to mass          from their emergency communications
                                                 notification. Emergency Management               systems is but a fraction of the capability,
Functional Requirements for                      professionals have been left with a complex      the whole truly being greater than the sum
Next Generation MNS                              array of disparate systems to use when           of its parts.
While the latest update to NFPA redefines        seconds count the most.
Mass Notification as “Emergency                                                                   A managed systems approach to emergency
Communications Systems (ECS)”, the end                                                            communications systems is becoming a
user community is formulating expectations       Communication is the backbone                    popular topic between IT, Facilities, and
related to the future functionality of today’s   of effective emergency management.               Public Safety stakeholders. A site audit of
alerting solutions.                                                                               a campus footprint can reveal a wealth
                                                 Being able to reach everyone in a
                                                                                                  of network devices that are capable of
Numerous best practices have surfaced
                                                 timely matter with the proper                    delivering an emergency message but
since alerting technology began its rapid,       information is the key to making the             are not configured to do so. Thinking of a
main stream adoption and the NFPA is             right decisions and mitigating                   variety of end point devices as underutilized
looking to incorporate pressure tested           negative outcomes.”                              assets, one can ask the crucial question
protocols in the new code. The latest                                                             “how do I make marginal adjustments that
                                                 -Lt. M. Smith Tennyson Commander,
updates refer to “wide-area” and “distributed                                                     will yield exponential returns related to
                                                 Governmental Security
recipient notification” in addition to           St Johns County Sheriff’s Office
                                                                                                  functionality?” LCDs, sirens, LEDs, desktop
building notifications. Wide area being the                                                       computers, and the ever-present fire panel
geography surrounding a building on a                                                             are but a few examples of devices that are
particular campus and distributed recipient      Leveraging the Network for Premise               only serving in a fraction of their capacity.
notification as “expanded beyond the             Based Solutions
facility and the area, to be accomplished        A popular model which comprises the              The response which serves this
through means such as telephone calls, text      foundation of most Mass Notification             question best is to use a premise based
messaging, and emails”.                          Systems currently deployed is a web-based,       solution, bundling all end point devices
                                                 multi modal offering residing completely         under a single managed emergency
So far, colleges, corporations and               outside of the IT infrastructure of a business   communications architecture effectively
government entities have made significant        or campus. This model is based on sound          creating a system of systems.
investments in technology platforms and          logic considering continuity of operations
end point devices towards a goal of safer,       planning but many times, the IT network          Consolidating Command and
more secure campus environments but              on-campus is one of the institution’s            Control Communications
still have not solved all critical messaging     greatest IT assets. It is common for CIOs        A managed emergency communications
challenges. As an industry, emergency            to invest a large percentage of their            system can include web based alerting as
communications has vaulted forward from          overall budget into the infrastructure and       one part of a holistic approach to critical
the days of single tone sirens but new           oftentimes buildings are so “wired” that the     messaging. To date, volume has been the
gaps in functionality are appearing when         degree of functionality end users are getting    underlying theme of mass notification
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but we are moving towards a blended requirement of scalable            users more options regarding a consolidated approach to critical
functionality to include accuracy and granularity in campus            communications and incident management professionals are
communications. Emergency Management professionals have                seeking scalable solutions which will make the most of past and
identified the need to have a laser focus after delivering the first   future investments.
wave of warnings. Pinpointing a building, floor, or office/classroom
offers a unique value proposition when considering scenarios           About Siemens Industry Inc.
wherein conditions affecting the people inside a structure are         For more than 110 years, Siemens
changing or are different for one location versus another. Having a    has been a leader in building controls innovation, fire solutions,
single user interface which manages all end point devices and allows   and security systems. With 400 locations throughout North
direct communications with predefined groups or one particular         America, Siemens
modality will prove to be an invaluable feature of future message      is positioned to provide customized services and support for our
management.                                                            clients’ specialized needs. For more information visit
                                                                       www.siemens.com/ keyword “Sygnal”.
Conclusion
Experts agree that the right technology mix can act as a force
multiplier in incident management. Well constructed plans and           About the Author
highly capable individuals are doubly effective when given the          Berkly Trumbo is a Mass Notification Systems (MNS) specialist
correct tools to utilize during an emergency.                           with responsibility for Florida and the Caribbean related to
                                                                        emergency communications technologies. Mr. Trumbo can be
Emergency communications systems are evolving towards a                 reached at berkly.trumbo@siemens.com or 954/ 364-6820.
managed system model as opposed to a collection of disjointed,
boutique applications. Advances in technology are affording end




         ass noti ation in a     oor  i ing
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   In critical moments, your customers need to send messages with con dence, and they rely on you to choose the
   right spec for their needs. Sygnal mass noti cation is industry-leading technology you can specify for every customer,
   whether it’s a single building or a complex campus. Sygnal gives customers the ability to reach people inside, outside
   and at their side, for maximum contactability when it matters most. ou get the con dence of recommending the
   best they get the con dence that they can reach them all. usa.siemens.com/buildingtechnologies


   Answers for infrastructure.
EM Bulletin



                                                                                                                                                                        Rebuilding Critical Infrastructure
                                                                                                                                                                            CONSTRUCTION IS UNDER WAY on Maine’s seventh
                                                                                                                                                                        and largest high-tech bridge, replacing standard concrete and
                                                                                                                                                                        steel construction with a lightweight and portable carbon-fiber
                                                                                                                                                                        tube structure. The new technology is designed to ward off
                                                                                                                                                                        corrosion, double a bridge’s structural lifespan, and signifi-
                                                                                                                                                                        cantly reduce construction time and repair costs.
                                                                                                                                                                            Off-site, carbon-fiber tubes are inflated, shaped into arches
                                                                                                                                                                        and infused with resin to harden them. The tubes are then
                                                                                                                                                                        moved to the foundation’s location and filled with concrete,




                                                                                                             PHOTO COURTESY OF THE MAINE DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
                                                                                                                                                                        producing arches as strong as steel. The arches are then
                                                                                                                                                                        covered with a fiber-reinforced decking and buried under
                                                                                                                                                                        several feet of sand.
                                                                                                                                                                            The carbon fiber protects the resin from harsh weather
                                                                                                                                                                        and extreme climates, which safety experts say is the greatest
                                                                                                                                                                        cause of bridge corrosion. In standard steel bridges, de-icing
                                                                                                                                                                        road salts and saltwater infiltrate the concrete and corrode the
                                                                                                                                                                        steel bar, which causes it to expand and crack the concrete,
                                                                                                                                                                        weakening the bridge.
                                                                                                                                                                            The design was developed by the University of Maine
                                                                                                                                                                        Advanced Structures and Composites Center and has been
                                                                                                                                                                        named “bridge in a backpack” technology because its com-
                                                                                                                                                                        ponents are lightweight and portable.



Tapping Solar Power
   A NORTH DAKOTA electric cooperative turned to
an alternative energy source to provide power to Sheridan
County ranchers whose power was knocked out by an April
2010 ice storm. The storm dropped nine inches of snow on
Bismarck, knocking out power to thousands in the central
and southwestern regions of the state and caused more than
$33 million in damage mostly to utilities, according to a
request for public assistance filed by then-Gov. John Hoeven.
   Rather than rebuild a section of transmission line that
provided power to the ranchers’ pasture wells, the Verendrye
Electric Cooperative installed two solar power sites capable
of generating 470 watts. The installations in McHenry and
Sheridan counties were funded with $11,201 in FEMA haz-
ard mitigation grant money. FEMA estimated that $29,000
                                                                      PHOTO COURTESY OF BRIAN HVINDEN/FEMA




was saved compared with the cost of reinstalling the approx-
imately mile-long power line.
   “In lieu of building in new power lines to a remote site to a
pasture well, if it’s summer pasture, we’ll put in solar instead of
building in a power line,” said Randy Hauck, member services
manager for the Verendrye Electric Cooperative, “because we
can do that at a cheaper cost than building in the power line,
and it provides the same service.”

16
Security Search
                                                                                                                                NEBRASKA LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIALS are
                                                                                                                            implementing a search platform to connect to 17 different
                                                                                                                            law enforcement data sources including records manage-
                                                                                                                            ment and computer-aided dispatch systems. Instead of sift-
                                                                                                                            ing through information by hand — which is what staff at
                                                                                                                            the Nebraska Information and Analysis Center (NIAC)
                                                                                                                            currently do — NIAC awarded a contract to Memex for its
                                                                                                                            Patriarch platform, which will help officials search disparate
                                                                                                                            databases across the state with a single query.
                                                                                                                                The platform provides the bridge between law enforce-
                                                                                                                            ment officers and private-sector partners who see something




                                                                   PHOTO COURTESY OF NEBRASKA INFORMATION ANALYSIS CENTER
                                                                                                                            suspicious and the fusion center analysts who vet and store
                                                                                                                            the data, or pass it along as appropriate. NIAC awarded a
                                                                                                                            contract to Memex at a cost of just under $3 million for
                                                                                                                            implementation of its Patriarch platform in May 2010. The
                                                                                                                            implementation is ongoing.
                                                                                                                                “Within the state, we’re defining agencies that are willing
                                                                                                                            to share information with us,” said Kevin Knorr, captain of
                                                                                                                            the NIAC, “and then we go out and set up a mirrored server.
                                                                                                                            We put it in their facility, a mirrored server that extracts that
                                                                                                                            information, which they will allow or will share with us or
                                                                                                                            the fusion center. Then that information is indexed through
                                                                                                                            the Memex server [and] provided as a response to a query.”



Cyber-Security Monitoring
    STATE AND LOCAL governments are closer than ever to
having a single view available of the cyber-attacks and security
vulnerabilities they face, thanks to groundbreaking work by a
cross-sector organization that’s bringing them together.




                                                                                                                                                                                                PHOTO COURTESY OF THE MULTI-STATE INFORMATION SHARING AND ANALYSIS CENTER
    The nonprofit Multi-State Information Sharing and Analy-
sis Center (MS-ISAC) is on the cusp of significant growth, said
the organization’s chair, Will Pelgrin, in November 2010. And
new participants will be able to use a threat-monitoring center
recently launched by the MS-ISAC that will give state and local
governments better security intelligence in near real time.
    By June, 14 states, seven local governments and one U.S.
territory will have their active threat monitoring done at
the new MS-ISAC operations facility, Pelgrin said. In 2003,
MS-ISAC began with just a handful of participating govern-
ments. Now all 50 states and many local governments have
partnered at some level with the organization.
    The center’s mission encompasses threat detection, pre-
vention and protection, and recovery for state, local, terri-
torial and tribal governments. The organization has made a
real-time dashboard of top cyber-threats available online.



                                                                                                                                                                   Emergency Management 17
Major Player                                                                                                                                                 By Jim McKay




                             James Demby
                             Senior Technical Adviser, FEMA
                             James Demby is the senior technical and policy
                             adviser and program manager for the FEMA
PHOTO BY DAVID KIDD




                             National Dam Safety Program. He advises
                             Sandra Knight, FEMA’s deputy federal insurance
                             and mitigation administrator for mitigation, on
                             matters pertaining to national dam safety.
                                Demby is a professional engineer registered
                             in Virginia and has worked for the U.S. Army
                             Corps of Engineers. His work for the corps
                             included geotechnical design projects; analysis      federal perspective. Then you have state dam safety           Alabama — although it does not have a legis-
                             of military construction; and civil works projects   representatives who bring expertise from the state         lated dam safety program — has begun actions
                             such as barracks complexes, military family          perspective, and you have representatives from the         over the last couple of years to identify the state’s
                             housing projects, hazardous waste sites, highway     private sector. You bring in these experts to look         dams, and to establish, inventory and provide that
                             bridge foundation design, federal navigation         at dam safety issues from a national perspective.          information to the National Inventory of Dams.
                             channels, and levees and flood
                             control structures.                                                                                             The state is taking steps toward getting a program.
                                                                                  One state doesn’t have a dam safety program.               The first step is getting a sense of what the need is.
                                                                                  What’s the significance of that?
                           What is the role of the National Dam                      In Alabama dams are regulated by the state.             What about the lack of knowledge of the people
                           Safety Program?                                        That means they’re not being inspected, and                across the country who live below dams, in
                              The purpose of the Dam Safety Program is to         there’s not a requirement for emergency action             terms of the danger they’re in?
                           reduce the risk to life and property from dam          planning for high hazard-potential dams. That                 We provide national assistance grants to state
                           failure; that’s the short answer. Part of that is      means that within the state, they don’t necessarily        dam safety programs. The hope is that they
                           bringing together expertise and resources from         have a good sense of the hazards that dams poten-          will coordinate with local and state emergency
                           federal and nonfederal communities. In the             tially pose to people downstream.                          managers to identify the risks within their state,
                           Dam Safety Program we have participation from             By not having a dam safety program that’s legis-        and with that coordination with the state dam
                           various federal agencies that have some type of        lated by the state, it can’t participate in the National   safety officials and emergency managers, develop
                           role in dams — in ownership, regulating dams           Dam Safety Program, whereby FEMA provides state            specific strategies within their state to address the
                           or building dams; they have some role from the         assistance grants that go to dam safety activities.        dangers. One area within the Dam Safety Program
                      18
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Major Player
                                                                                                                                                                           Hoover Dam is considered to be one of the top 10
                                                                                                                                                                           construction achievements of the 20th century.


is public awareness. That’s one of the functional     state and the number of dams nationally that fall
activities identified in the National Dam Safety      under the National Inventory of Dams.
[Program] Act.                                           One concern that’s been raised from the states
   That’s one of the things we realized we need       is that it might be more effective if the money is
to improve on with the Dam Safety Program             based more on risk as opposed to just a straight
— providing more of an outreach strategy to           formula based on the number of dams. That way
communicate the risk from a broad perspective         you make sure the federal investment is going to
[of the dangers] to populations downstream of         the areas that have the most risk.
dams. On our current grants that we put out for
2010, we have some language to try to address the     What areas are most at risk? Do people in those
gap in awareness of dangers downstream. One of        areas know how at risk they are?
the initiatives in the 2010 state assistance grants      The states are the front line for dam safety
was to encourage state safety officials, once they    because 85 percent of the nation’s 83,000 dams are
identify dams that are unsafe or at risk, to coor-    regulated by states. With that said, state officials
dinate and provide that information to state and      should have a good understanding of the dams




                                                                                                                                   PHOTO COURTESY OF HOOVERDAMBYPASS.ORG
local emergency managers and local decision-          that are at risk in their states.
makers, like mayors or city council members, so          It’s imperative that state dam safety officials
they’ll have the situational awareness of a dam       communicate that information and work with
that poses a threat to a community.                   state and local emergency managers so that there
                                                      is good situational awareness at the state and local
You’ve said money probably should be distrib-         levels of dams that potentially threaten popula-
uted differently. Can you elaborate?                  tions downstream.
   Currently money is distributed based on the           From a national perspective, that is information
language in the Dam Safety Act, and that’s based      we don’t collect as part of the National Dam Safety
on a distribution of the number of dams in the        Program. With the National Inventory of Dams,                                                               what we do have is information on the hazard-
                                                                                                                                                                  potential classification. But that’s not really a risk-
                                                                                                                                                                  based classification. It’s a classification on: If the
                                                                                                                                                                  dam fails there is — say, for high-hazard classifi-
                                                        Demby holds a framed photo of the Fort                                                                    cation — probably loss of life. Significant hazard
                                                        Peck Dam taken by Margaret Bourke-
                                                        White. The Montana dam was featured on                                                                    potential means if that there’s a dam failure there
                                                        the first cover of Life magazine in 1936.                                                                  would be substantial economic impact down-
                                                                                                                                                                  stream. There’s a low-hazard classification; that is
                                                                                                                                                                  if the dam fails, there would be no impact to life
                                                                                                                                                                  or property. But those are not risk-informed clas-
                                                                                                                                                                  sifications; they’re based on consequences.

                                                                                                                                                                   How concerned are you about the threat of a
                                                                                                                                                                   terrorist attack on the nation’s dams?
                                                                                                                                                                      The Infrastructure Protection Office in the
                                                                                                                                                                   Department of Homeland Security primarily
                                                                                                                                                                   addresses the terrorist threat. The whole dam
                                                                                                                                                                   sector is broken down into two parts: FEMA has
                                                                                                                                                                   the responsibility of dam safety and DHS specifi-
                                                                                                                                                                   cally looks at the security side — so they’re more
                                                                                                                                                                   focused on the terrorist-sabotage area.
                                                                                                                                                                      With that said, as far as the critical infrastruc-
                                                                                                                                                                   ture and the sectors identified as part of the crit-
                                                                                                                                                                   ical infrastructure, dams are one of the critical
                                                                                                                                                                   infrastructure areas, so there is great concern. We
                                                                                                             PHOTO BY DAVID KIDD




                                                                                                                                                                   want to make sure that there is a national frame-
                                                                                                                                                                   work and approach to make sure that our critical
                                                                                                                                                                   infrastructure is being hardened and protected
                                                                                                                                                                   from terrorist threats. k
20
You are there to
                        protect them.
                        We are here to help you.

                        As an emergency management professional,
                        your job is to help protect them. If the worst
                        happens its your job to help them get their
                        lives back.

                        We call it resilience. And we’re your resilience
                        partner.

                          o other rm has the depth of e perience or
                        the breadth of services and technologies to
                        help you achieve community and organization
                        resilience. We can help you prepare, respond,
                        communicate and recover.




                         Find out more about how O’Brien’s can be
                                  your resiliency partner at:

                                     www.obriensrm.com
                                   Call us at 281-3209796
                              Email us at email@obriensrm.com.




Prepare. Respond.
Communicate. Recover.       obriensrm.com
PHOTO ©SEBASTIAN VANDREY/ FLICKR




22
                                        THE LOOMING
UNDERESTIMATING
THE CYBER-THREAT
TO OUR NATION’S CRITICAL
INFRASTRUCTURE WOULD
PROVE PERILOUS.
BY L AU RIE J. FLYNN | CON T RIBU TING W RIT ER
©ISTOCKPHOTO.COM/TEBNAD

                                                                                      A cyber-attack could start small, bringing down an
                                                                                      electrical grid, but grow into a network of outages
                                                                                      across the country’s critical infrastructure.




                                                                                                                                              period. The impact, Chronister said, could
                                                                                                                                              be devastating.
                                                                                                                                                 Yet effective protection from cyber-threats
                                                                                                                                              requires unprecedented cooperation between
                                                                                                                                              the public and private sectors. Unfortunately
                                                                                                                                              the two sides are not even close.
                                                                                                                                                 To the private sector, the federal govern-
                                                                                                                                              ment is falling dramatically short of meeting
                                                                                                                                              its cyber-security expectations. According to
                                                                                                                                              the Government Accountability Office’s Critical
                                                                                                                                              Infrastructure Protection report, fewer than one-
                                                                                                                                              third of private-sector respondents said they
                                                                                                                                              felt the federal government was meeting their
                                                                                                                                              expectations for “timely and actionable” infor-
                                                                                                                                              mation and alerts related to cyber-threats. And
                                                                                                                                              roughly four out of five private-sector respon-
                                                                                                                                              dents indicated that they felt the mechanisms
                                                                                                                                              for sharing information between the public and
                                                                                                                                              private sectors were inadequate.
                                                                                                                                                 The report also showed that federal agencies
                                                                                                                                              weren’t meeting private industry’s expectations
                                                                                                                                              for assisting with security tests, offering training
                                                                                                                                              opportunities or providing necessary security
                                                                                                                                              clearances. These companies reported a lack of a
                                                                                                                                              “single centralized government cyber-information
                                                                                                                                              source.” These shortcomings, the report con-
                                               idespread blackouts sweep across          company. “Companies think they are secure            cluded, hinder the private sector’s ability to thwart



                               W
                               work collapses.
                                               the country, traffic signals go
                                               haywire, global financial markets
                                               freeze, the Pentagon’s data net-

                                  These calamities and much worse are exactly
                                                                                         because they are compliant with standards, but
                                                                                         they really don’t know enough. There’s a false
                                                                                         sense of security.”
                                                                                             The pace at which hackers and other intrud-
                                                                                         ers are inventing ways of breaking into private
                                                                                                                                              cyber-attacks.
                                                                                                                                                 But federal agencies say the private sector
                                                                                                                                              shares responsibility for shortcomings in the
                                                                                                                                              partnership. Public agencies would like the
                                                                                                                                              private sector to be more willing to share pro-
                               what could happen in the event of a large-scale           networks, including critical U.S. infrastructure,    prietary information with federal agencies —
                               “attack” on computer networks in the United               is far outpacing the ability to protect them, said   something it’s currently reluctant to do — the
                               States, or so the experts say. The problem will           Chronister. At the same time, people routinely       report states. Restrictions within the private
                               start small, say, bringing down an electrical             underestimate the damage a region would sus-         sector on the kind of information it can share
                               grid within minutes. However, what may have               tain if its electrical network, perhaps even its     make it difficult to provide individualized treat-
                               seemed like an isolated incident could create             water supply, were to go down for an extended        ment to any single business sector.
                               scores of network outages across the country’s                                                                    Jeffrey Carr, a cyber-security expert and
                               critical infrastructure. To many in the American                                                               author of Inside Cyber Warfare, said the private
                               military, federal agencies and high-tech com-               FBI PRIORITIES                                     network operators, most notably the nation’s
                               panies, the threat from America’s fiercest                  1.   International-domestic terrorism              largest utility companies, should be blamed
                               adversaries is ominous. Their target isn’t neces-                                                              for addressing security delays, not the public
                                                                                           2.   Foreign counterintelligence                   sector. Most of the nation’s energy companies,
                               sarily military, but rather the networks owned
                               and maintained by private companies with                    3.   Cyber-crime                                   for example, have been very adversarial toward
                               household names like Consolidated Edison,                   4.   Public corruption                             federal security efforts from the start. “Private
                               Citigroup, Exxon and Google. And to many of                                                                    industry has been dragging its feet, finding
                                                                                           5.   Civil rights
                               these gatekeepers, it’s not a matter of if, but when                                                           ways to be excluded,” he said.
                               — unless something is done now to shore up                  6.   Transnational criminal enterprise
                               security of these networks.                                 7.   White-collar crime                            Invisible Threat
                                  “There’s a perfect storm coming,” said David                                                                   The threat of cyber-attacks has been steadily
                                                                                           8.   Violent crime
                               Chronister, a self-described “ethical hacker”                                                                  increasing for several years, while it has become
                               and founder of Parameter Security, a consulting             SOURCE: BRIAN HERRICK, FBI                         much clearer that the United States is unprepared
                          24
to protect itself against such attacks. Estimates    a malicious computer worm found its way                        The system would work by analyzing the vec-
vary as to the exact cost of cyber-crime, but in     into an Iranian nuclear plant after infecting               tors where cyber-attacks could occur, typically
a 2009 speech, President Barack Obama put the        thousands of computer systems worldwide.                    the points at which a private network connects
2007-2008 combined total at $8 billion.              The incident, caused by a malicious software                to the Internet.
   The sources of cyber attacks take many forms,
from individual unauthorized hackers access-
ing private networks, criminal groups seeking        “Private industry has been dragging its heels for years on
monetary gain, to individuals or terrorist orga-     this, and it’s something that has to be done.”
nizations attempting to break into critical data     — JEFFREY CARR, CYBER-SECURITY EXPERT AND AUTHOR OF INSIDE CYBER WARFARE
networks to threaten national security, perhaps
even cripple the economy. It is this last category
that poses the greatest national threat.             program called Stuxnet, made it glaringly                       But when news of the program leaked last
   So-called botnets are a particularly danger-      obvious how vulnerable the world’s critical                 July in The Wall Street Journal, not everyone
ous security threat because they can remain          computer networks really are, and perhaps                   viewed Perfect Citizen as an asset. Instead, pri-
nearly invisible while siphoning data to a new       more importantly, just how difficult it can be              vacy watchdogs and consumer groups viewed
destination. These intrusions focus on stealing      to find the source of malicious programs. The               the program as providing the nation’s lead-
intellectual property, rather than taking down       exact origin of the Stuxnet worm has never                  ing eavesdropper with another opportunity to
networks. Perhaps the most malicious form of         been discovered, but its ferocity — along                   invade individuals’ privacy.
cyber-attack seen so far is the denial of service,   with its surreptitiousness — sent shock waves                   The NSA, long known for its eavesdropping
which is when hackers send repeated requests         through the federal agencies charged with                   activities, responded to the report by denying
to a network to overload and shut it down.           preventing such attacks and showed the pri-                 that Perfect Citizen involves any monitoring
   Reports of cyber-attacks over the past few        vate industry just how little is known about                activity or places sensors on networks, as the
years illustrate the seriousness of the problem      securing the nation’s infrastructure.                       story asserted. Rather, the NSA countered that
and its potentially devastating impact on private                                                                the program is simply a way for the agency to
industry and public safety. While more than 100      New Approach, New Controversy                               assess a network’s vulnerabilities.
countries can launch cyber-attacks, China is con-       The most recent approach to protecting                       Carr argues that people misunderstand
sidered the greatest threat to the United States,    U.S. infrastructure from cyber-attacks came in              Perfect Citizen’s goal. The program, he said, is
and relations between the two countries have         the form of a new program from the National                 providing long-overdue, much-needed security
become fraught with hostility and suspicions         Security Agency (NSA). Called Perfect Citizen,              on critical infrastructure. “I consider it more or
over cyber-security. According to Chronister,        the program is intended to monitor threats to               less a housekeeping issue, not widespread sur-
Russia is considered an increasing threat as well.   the country’s infrastructure, including electrical          veillance,” he said. “This is a program to test the
   In March 2008, according the Critical Infra-      networks, nuclear power plants and transpor-                vulnerabilities of a network. Private industry
structure Protection report, the Department          tation systems, and to trigger an alarm in the              has been dragging its heels for years on this, and
of Defense and other federal agencies and            event of an impending intrusion.                            it’s something that has to be done.”
contractors reported that their computer net-
works were targets of intrusion, and the attacks
appeared to have originated in China.                   The threat of cyber-attacks in the United




                                                                                                                                                                       PHOTO COURTESY OF RICHARD O’REILLY/ FEMA
   In 2009, North Korea was suspected of an             States has been increasing and could
                                                        cause widespread blackouts.
attack that started July Fourth weekend and
took down the Web servers of the U.S. Treasury,
Secret Service and Federal Trade Commission,
among others. (South Korean government Web
servers were hit at roughly the same time.)
   And in 2010, it came to light that more than
30 private companies, many of them in Silicon
Valley, had experienced intrusions of their data
networks. Of those companies, Google said it
had been the victim of a “highly sophisticated
and targeted attack on our corporate infrastruc-
ture originating from China that resulted in the
theft of intellectual property from Google.”
   But perhaps the most dramatic example
of a cyber-attack came last summer when
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Emergency Management Magazine Jan Feb 2011

  • 1. A p blication of e.Republic publication e.Repu c p January/February 2011 T H E FA C E O F TERROR DOMESTIC THREATS HAVE FORCED MESTIC LAW ENFORCEMENT TO THE ‘HOME GAME’ inside: Are we underestimating the cyber-threat? Issue 1 — Vol. 6 The emergency manager with multiple hats.
  • 2. Knowledge is Power. Knowledge Center™ is Fusion. Use Knowledge Center™ to promote a virtual collaborative environment to facilitate cooperation and provide instant access to information—anytime, anywhere. Common Operating Picture (COP) Interoperability Fusion Center Situational Awareness Incident Management Software Solutions Fully-functional, out-of-the-box, no training required. Incident Management System Hospital Incident Management System Fusion System Incident Command System (ICS) Hospital Incident Command System (HICS) Optimized intelligence sharing Critical Infrastructure/Key Resources (CI/KR) Hazard Vulnerability Assessment (HVA) Secure, tiered access control Situation Reporting (SITREP) Patient/Triage tracking Dynamic, configurable reporting Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Hospital Available Beds (HAvBED) Interoperable with CADs
  • 3. “The Knowledge Center’s ‘common operating picture’ is something that every response organization should strive for.” — Commander Timme, US Coast Guard “I think this type of information sharing is an example of how it should be.” — Lieutenant Zupanc, Ohio Fusion Center Don’t just report. Communicate. Call us: 412.635.3322 www.knowledge-center.com Incident Management Software Solutions
  • 4. ON THE COVER Contents 28 The Face of Terror The localized face of terrorism has forced law enforcement to the ‘home game.’ FEATURES 22 The Looming Cyber-Threat Underestimating the cyber-threat to our nation’s critical infrastructure would prove perilous. 34 Donning Multiple Hats Should the role of emergency manager be a full-time job or can the duties be shared? DEPARTMENTS 38 PUBLIC SAFETY AND SECURITY Demystify the Message Understanding social science research on emergency warnings is key to developing alert and warning plans that grab the public’s attention. 42 DISASTER RECOVERY Recovery Doesn’t Just Happen Most communities lack disaster recovery planning experience, but examples of effective efforts provide lessons learned and help create best practices. 44 TRAINING AND EDUCATION ‘Prepared not Scared’ A partnership between the Girl Scouts of the USA and federal agencies seeks to help establish a culture of preparedness. iSTOCKPHOTO.COM 4
  • 5. Panasonic Toughbook® Arbitrator™ 360º Introducing the groundbreaking Toughbook® Arbitrator 360°, a rugged revolution in law enforcement video capture. The Toughbook Arbitrator 360° is a rugged and durable mobile digital video system that can be used with or without a Toughbook computer. Built with legendary Toughbook reliability, this fully integrated system offers unparalleled video capture (up to 360 degrees), storage and transfer and is designed to work with back- end software for seamless video management, including archiving and retrieving. Capture it all with the Toughbook Arbitrator 360°. Insight Named Arbitrator Reseller of the Year 2008, 2009 Insight’s entire portfolio of public safety products and solutions is available nationally through our U.S. Communities Every decision counts when it comes to public safety. That’s why our teams are contract. www.ips.insight.com/uscommunities made up of former law enforcement, fire and rescue professionals, and public safety IT experts like Lorne Shackelford, who have extensive experience with precisely the issues you’re facing. So if you want options from people who’ve been there, contact us today. License Plate Recognition Mobile and Fixed Video Mobile Data Terminals BEYOND THE BOX 1.800.INSIGHT IPS.INSIGHT.COM © 2010 Insight Direct USA, Inc. All rights reserved. Insight is a registered trademark of Insight Direct USA, Inc. All other company and product names are trademarks or service marks of their respective owners.
  • 6. Group Publisher: Don Pearson dpearson@govtech.com Founding Publisher: Tim Karney tkarney@govtech.com Contents VP Emergency Management/ Homeland Security: Publisher: Martin Pastula mpastula@govtech.com (916) 932-1497 Scott Fackert sfackert@govtech.com (916) 765-1875 Executive Editor: Steve Towns stowns@govtech.com EDITORIAL Editor: Jim McKay jmckay@govtech.com Associate Editor: Elaine Pittman epittman@govtech.com Managing Editor: Karen Stewartson kstewartson@govtech.com Assistant Editor: Matt Williams mwilliams@govtech.com Features Editor: Andy Opsahl aopsahl@govtech.com Chief Copy Editor: Miriam Jones mjones@govtech.com Copy Editor: Sarah Rich srich@govtech.com Staff Writers: Hilton Collins hcollins@govtech.com Corey McKenna cmckenna@govtech.com Lauren Katims lkatims@govtech.com DESIGN Creative Director: Kelly Martinelli kmartinelli@govtech.com Senior Designer: Crystal Hopson chopson@govtech.com Graphic Designer: Michelle Hamm mhamm@govtech.com Illustrator: Tom McKeith tmckeith@govtech.com Production Director: Stephan Widmaier swidm@govtech.com Production Manager: Joei Heart jheart@govtech.com PUBLISHING VP of Strategic Accounts: Jon Fyffe jfyffe@govtech.com VP Bus. Development: Tim Karney tkarney@govtech.com East Regional Sales Directors: East Leslie Hunter lhunter@govtech.com West, Central Shelley Ballard sballard@govtech.com Account Managers: East Melissa Cano mcano@govtech.com West, Central Erin Gross egross@govtech.com ©ISTOCKPHOTO.COM/ THEREALDARLA Business Development Director: Glenn Swenson gswenson@govtech.com Bus. Dev. Managers: Lisa Doughty ldoughty@govtech.com John Enright jenright@govtech.com DEPARTMENTS CONTINUED Pat Hoertling phoertling@govtech.com Kevin May kmay@govtech.com 48 16 Regional Sales Administrators: Sabrina Shewmake sshewmake@govtech.com Christine Childs cchilds@govtech.com National Sales Administrator: Jennifer Valdez jvaldez@govtech.com PUBLIC HEALTH EM Bulletin Director of Marketing: Andrea Kleinbardt akleinbardt@govtech.com Extinguish or Evacuate? Sr. Dir. of Custom Events: Dir. of Custom Events: Whitney Sweet wsweet@govtech.com Lana Herrera lherrera@govtech.com What health risks do fire extinguishers pose to a health-care facility? 18 Custom Events Managers: Tanya Noujaim tnoujaim@govtech.com Katey Lamke klamke@govtech.com Gina Fabrocini gfabrocini@govtech.com Major Player Custom Events Coordinator: Megan Turco mturco@govtech.com Custom Events Admin.: Sharon Remeiro sremeiro@govtech.com James Demby, senior technical and policy 52 adviser and program manager, FEMA National Dir. of Custom Media: Custom Media Editor: Stacey Toles stoles@govtech.com Emily Montandon emontandon@govtech.com PUBLIC SAFETY AND SECURITY Dam Safety Program Sr. Custom Media Writer: Jim Meyers jmeyers@govtech.com Custom Media Writer: Rohish Lal rlal@govtech.com The Impact of IPAWS Custom Media Proj. Asst.: Courtney Hardy chardy@govtech.com Dir. of Web Products and Svcs.: Vikki Palazzari vpalazzari@govtech.com This modernized national alert system is accessible to local emergency managers. 54 Web Services Manager: Peter Simek psimek@govtech.com Custom Web Products Manager: Michelle Mrotek mmrotek@govtech.com Products Web Advertising Manager: Web Services/Project Manager: Julie Dedeaux jdedeaux@govtech.com Adam Fowler afowler@govtech.com Subscription Coordinator: Eenie Yang subscriptions@govtech.com REST OF THE BOOK 56 CORPORATE CEO: Dennis McKenna dmckenna@govtech.com 8 Eric’s Corner Executive VP: Executive VP: Don Pearson dpearson@govtech.com Cathilea Robinett crobinet@centerdigitalgov.com Letters/Calendar Politics Is Unavoidable CAO: CFO: Lisa Bernard lbernard@govtech.com Paul Harney pharney@govtech.com VP of Events: Alan Cox acox@govtech.com Chief Marketing Officer: Margaret Mohr mmohr@govtech.com 10 58 Chief Content Officer: Paul W. Taylor ptaylor@govtech.com Point of View Last Word Government Technology’s Emergency Management (ISSN 2156-2490) is published by e.Republic Inc. © 2011 by e.Republic Inc. All rights reserved. Opinions expressed by writers are not necessarily those of the publisher or editors. Reaching Younger Audiences Responsible Social Media Article submissions should be sent to the attention of the Managing Editor. Reprints of all articles in this issue and past issues are available (500 minimum). Please direct inquiries for reprints and licensing to Wright’s Media: (877) 652-5295, sales@wrightsmedia.com. 12 Subscription Information: Requests for subscriptions may be directed to subscription coordinator by phone or fax to the numbers below. You can also subscribe online at www.emergencymgmt.com. In the News 100 Blue Ravine Road, Folsom, CA 95630 Phone: (916)932-1300 Fax: (916)932-1470 www.emergencymgmt.com The inside pages of this publication are printed A publication of 6 e on 80 percent de-inked recycled fiber.
  • 8. Reader Feedback personnel and other emergency respond- per attack does happen, those will be a hot commodity, ers involved in distributing countermea- and I wouldn’t put it past opportunistic criminals to sures should be offered the anthrax vaccine sur see the benefit of acquiring a stockpile of antibiotics.” beforehand since personal protective equip- bef — Zach Falb ment (PPE) is not foolproof. Have the USPS me workers volunteering in these distribution wo Enhancing Rail Security plans been informed that six out of nine pla An online comment in response to the November/ HAZMAT experts became infected at the HA December 2010 article Safeguarding the Rails points Hart Senate Office Building attack in 2001 Ha out an additional method for augmenting railroad despite using PPE? Do these USPS person- de security. nel understand that the anthrax vaccine is ne available and when given before exposure/ av “One group which should not be overlooked is infection, the vaccine is the best protection against the legion of rail fans across the country; not only both antibiotic-resistant and antibiotic-sensitive do these people often have detailed knowledge of Letter Carrier Safety anthrax? I wonder if the USPS volunteers under- rail systems, they’re also frequently indulging in In response to the cover story, Marshaling the stand the risks involved in participating as couri- their hobby of train watching. As such they’re a Postal Service, in the November/December 2010 ers of antibiotics without being first immunized. perfect force multiplier for enhancing security. issue, online readers discussed the possible health and Incidentally about half a million doses of Strate- Some railroads have already created ‘rail fan secu- safety issues for the letter carriers involved in distrib- gic National Stockpile anthrax vaccine is being rity’ programs, actively recruiting rail fans and giv- uting medical countermeasures following a biological destroyed each month. All this begs the question: ing them an 800 number to call in the event they attack involving anthrax on a metropolitan area. Why not proactively vaccinate those responding to see something suspicious, or even something like an anthrax attack with short-dated vaccine rather a minor equipment defect. Expansion of such pro- “The plan to use USPS letter carriers to dispense than allowing those doses to go to waste?” grams would be a great, and inexpensive, way to antibiotics to civilians at risk during a confirmed — Thomas K. Zink, M.D. enhance rail security.” wide-area anthrax attack assumes the anthrax — Tom S. strain used in the attack is antibiotic-sensitive. This “What I’m curious about is the safety and secu- Your opinions matter to us. Send letters to the editor at assumption may be a faulty one since we now know rity of the letter carriers when delivering antibiot- editorial@govtech.com. Please list your telephone number for confirmation. Publication is solely at the discretion of the that antibiotic-resistant anthrax exists. And even if ics. What precautions are being planned if someone editors. Emergency Management reserves the right to edit the anthrax used is sensitive to antibiotics, USPS wants to steal the antibiotics they’re delivering? If an submissions for length. Emergency Management Events 14-18 February 15-16 February 22-25 February 3 March 7-11 March RSA CONFERENCE BORDER SECURITY EXPO PUBLIC HEALTH ALL-HAZARDS/ IWCE CONVERGENT San Francisco Phoenix PREPAREDNESS SUMMIT ALL-STAKEHOLDERS SUMMIT COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEMS Atlanta Seattle CONFERENCE Learn about emerging threats in The expo features exhibit hall Las Vegas information security and how to displays of cutting-edge tech- The summit offers interac- The All-Hazards/All-Stakeholders safeguard against them. nology, workshops and speaker tive sessions and workshops Summit will address man-made At IWCE, visit more than 330 presentations on critical issues, focused on building, enhancing and natural hazards — fires, exhibitors showcasing the WWW.RSACONFERENCE.COM and free certified training for and sustaining our nation’s floods, earthquakes, terror hardware, applications, interop- law enforcement professionals. ability to plan for, respond to events — facing the Seattle area erability and integration that and recover from disasters and and address best practices in will make your systems more 20-25 March WWW.BORDERSECURITYEXPO.COM other public health emergencies. preparing for and mitigating effective and efficient. Attend these crises. workshops and seminars to NATIONAL EMERGENCY WWW.PHPREP.ORG learn how to apply this technol- MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATION CONTACT: LIESE BRUNNER AT 800/940-6039 EXT. MID-YEAR CONFERENCE ogy at your organization. 1355 FOR REGISTRATION INFORMATION, AND SCOTT Alexandria, Va. FACKERT AT 916/932-1416 FOR SPONSORSHIP WWW.IWCEEXPO.COM/IWCE2011/PUBLIC/ENTER.ASPX The conference provides a INFORMATION. forum to discuss important is- WWW.EMERGENCYMGMT.COM/EVENTS sues in the fields of emergency management and homeland security. WWW.NEMAWEB.ORG 8
  • 9. community Better serve your from more places in the community. Equip your employees with AT&T’s suite of Mobility Solutions for Government. AT&T can help your government agency be even more productive and efficient. Our apps can speed deployment and tracking of emergency response crews. Give inspectors location-specific information before appointments. Provide social workers access to case files from the field. All on the nation’s fastest mobile broadband network. See what our government solutions team can do for your agency at att.com/MobileGOVT AT&T’s mobile broadband network is not available in all areas. © 2010 AT&T Intellectual Property. All rights reserved. AT&T, the AT&T logo and all other AT&T marks contained herein are trademarks of AT&T Intellectual Property and/or AT&T affiliated companies. n
  • 10. Point of View Reaching Younger Audiences Creating the “culture of preparedness” that the emergency at that age,” said Patti Thompson, communications manager management community talks about can only truly be achieved for IEMA. “So it just seemed like the video game route was by making disaster preparedness second nature to citizens. something new to do, a new direction to go.” When I think about instilling lessons in people’s lives, that Thompson said the agency was going to work with the Illi- means starting when they are young and ingraining them with nois State Board of Education to get notices sent to teachers the necessary skills and knowledge. to make them aware of the game, with the goal of teachers However, reaching younger audiences can be difficult. implementing it into their curriculum. Although many children are eager to learn about disasters IEMA seeks to keep children’s interest through an online — images of snowstorms, tornadoes, etc. can leave a lasting leader board that tracks players’ best times. “They play it impression — the message on how they can prepare not only through once, and it’s pretty much a learning experience the themselves but also their families is something that needs to first time through,” Thompson said. “Then they can play it be reiterated. But finding the best way to repeat that message over and over, and there’s a clock that times how long it takes in a fun yet informative way can be difficult, and that’s why the them [to complete] each segment.” message should be taught through means that children enjoy Illinois isn’t the only agency hoping to spread prepared- and find engaging — like video games. ness messages through video games. The American College of When I think about instilling lessons in people’s lives, that means starting when they are young and ingraining them with the necessary skills and knowledge. In November 2010, the Illinois Emergency Management Emergency Physicians is using a U.S. Department of Home- Agency (IEMA) released The Day the Earth Shook, a video land Security grant to develop the video game Disaster Hero. Best Public Safety/Trade game that uses an earthquake scenario to demonstrate the The project is expected to be completed this year, and will focus 2009 Maggie Award need for a disaster supply kit as well as to identify safe loca- on what to do before, during and after a disaster. According to tions in a building during an earthquake. To make it accessible a statement, the game will target multiple audiences, including to everyone in the state, IEMA posted the game on its Ready children, early teens, parents, caregivers and teachers. Illinois website, www.ready.illinois.gov. The Day the Earth By packaging the disaster preparedness message in a form Shook targets middle schoolers, an age group for which the that children already enjoy, IEMA and the American College agency lacked a preparedness messaging program. of Emergency Physicians are on the right path to starting the 2010 Magazine of the Year Top 3 Finalist “We knew that we needed to do something that would be culture of preparedness for younger generations. k Less Than $2 Million Division fun, but they’re too old for coloring books and activity books Elaine Pittman Associate Editor Questions or comments? Please give us your input by contacting our editorial department at editorial@govtech.com, or visit our website at www.emergencymgmt.com. 10 L E A D , F O L L O W O R G E T O U T O F T H E W AY.
  • 11. Serve. Learn. Lead. AMU offers respected online degree programs designed for students who want to advance their career. Our Fire Science and Emergency and Disaster Management programs are among 76 online degree programs for those who wish to serve, learn, and lead as an Emergency or Fire Services Manager. FoHE accredited/FESHE compliant. 2009 International Association of Emergency Managers (IAEM) recipient of: • Academic Recognition Award, Emergency & Disaster Management Program. • Student Council Chapter of the Year, APUS International Association of Emergency Managers Student Association (IEMSA). LEARN MORE AT OR CALL amuonline.com/public-safety 877.777.9081 American Military University is a member institution of the regionally accredited American Public University System
  • 12. In the News Nearly a decade after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, in December 2010 counterterrorism officials said they had made it easier to add individuals’ names to the terrorist watch list. The second iteration of the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment was scheduled to be launched in January — the first version went live in 2005 — and new criteria says that a credible, single- source tip can lead to a name being added to the watch list. Approximately 440,000 people are on the list, which is a 5 percent increase over 2009, The Washington Post reported. Although a majority of the names on the watch list are of non-U.S. citizens, law enforcement and intelligence agencies are ramping up efforts to thwart an PHOTO COURTESY OF ANDREA BOOHER/FEMA increasing issue: terrorist threats from U.S. citizens. The issue is explored in this month’s cover story on page 28. 12
  • 14. ADVERTISEMENT Managed Emergency Communications Systems Functional Requirements for Next Generation MNS Berkly Trumbo, Siemens Industry Inc. considering a holistic approach to mass from their emergency communications notification. Emergency Management systems is but a fraction of the capability, Functional Requirements for professionals have been left with a complex the whole truly being greater than the sum Next Generation MNS array of disparate systems to use when of its parts. While the latest update to NFPA redefines seconds count the most. Mass Notification as “Emergency A managed systems approach to emergency Communications Systems (ECS)”, the end communications systems is becoming a user community is formulating expectations Communication is the backbone popular topic between IT, Facilities, and related to the future functionality of today’s of effective emergency management. Public Safety stakeholders. A site audit of alerting solutions. a campus footprint can reveal a wealth Being able to reach everyone in a of network devices that are capable of Numerous best practices have surfaced timely matter with the proper delivering an emergency message but since alerting technology began its rapid, information is the key to making the are not configured to do so. Thinking of a main stream adoption and the NFPA is right decisions and mitigating variety of end point devices as underutilized looking to incorporate pressure tested negative outcomes.” assets, one can ask the crucial question protocols in the new code. The latest “how do I make marginal adjustments that -Lt. M. Smith Tennyson Commander, updates refer to “wide-area” and “distributed will yield exponential returns related to Governmental Security recipient notification” in addition to St Johns County Sheriff’s Office functionality?” LCDs, sirens, LEDs, desktop building notifications. Wide area being the computers, and the ever-present fire panel geography surrounding a building on a are but a few examples of devices that are particular campus and distributed recipient Leveraging the Network for Premise only serving in a fraction of their capacity. notification as “expanded beyond the Based Solutions facility and the area, to be accomplished A popular model which comprises the The response which serves this through means such as telephone calls, text foundation of most Mass Notification question best is to use a premise based messaging, and emails”. Systems currently deployed is a web-based, solution, bundling all end point devices multi modal offering residing completely under a single managed emergency So far, colleges, corporations and outside of the IT infrastructure of a business communications architecture effectively government entities have made significant or campus. This model is based on sound creating a system of systems. investments in technology platforms and logic considering continuity of operations end point devices towards a goal of safer, planning but many times, the IT network Consolidating Command and more secure campus environments but on-campus is one of the institution’s Control Communications still have not solved all critical messaging greatest IT assets. It is common for CIOs A managed emergency communications challenges. As an industry, emergency to invest a large percentage of their system can include web based alerting as communications has vaulted forward from overall budget into the infrastructure and one part of a holistic approach to critical the days of single tone sirens but new oftentimes buildings are so “wired” that the messaging. To date, volume has been the gaps in functionality are appearing when degree of functionality end users are getting underlying theme of mass notification
  • 15. ADVERTISEMENT but we are moving towards a blended requirement of scalable users more options regarding a consolidated approach to critical functionality to include accuracy and granularity in campus communications and incident management professionals are communications. Emergency Management professionals have seeking scalable solutions which will make the most of past and identified the need to have a laser focus after delivering the first future investments. wave of warnings. Pinpointing a building, floor, or office/classroom offers a unique value proposition when considering scenarios About Siemens Industry Inc. wherein conditions affecting the people inside a structure are For more than 110 years, Siemens changing or are different for one location versus another. Having a has been a leader in building controls innovation, fire solutions, single user interface which manages all end point devices and allows and security systems. With 400 locations throughout North direct communications with predefined groups or one particular America, Siemens modality will prove to be an invaluable feature of future message is positioned to provide customized services and support for our management. clients’ specialized needs. For more information visit www.siemens.com/ keyword “Sygnal”. Conclusion Experts agree that the right technology mix can act as a force multiplier in incident management. Well constructed plans and About the Author highly capable individuals are doubly effective when given the Berkly Trumbo is a Mass Notification Systems (MNS) specialist correct tools to utilize during an emergency. with responsibility for Florida and the Caribbean related to emergency communications technologies. Mr. Trumbo can be Emergency communications systems are evolving towards a reached at berkly.trumbo@siemens.com or 954/ 364-6820. managed system model as opposed to a collection of disjointed, boutique applications. Advances in technology are affording end ass noti ation in a oor i ing safety net or networking nightmare? Sygnal™ mass noti cation gives you a complete range of products for any project. In critical moments, your customers need to send messages with con dence, and they rely on you to choose the right spec for their needs. Sygnal mass noti cation is industry-leading technology you can specify for every customer, whether it’s a single building or a complex campus. Sygnal gives customers the ability to reach people inside, outside and at their side, for maximum contactability when it matters most. ou get the con dence of recommending the best they get the con dence that they can reach them all. usa.siemens.com/buildingtechnologies Answers for infrastructure.
  • 16. EM Bulletin Rebuilding Critical Infrastructure CONSTRUCTION IS UNDER WAY on Maine’s seventh and largest high-tech bridge, replacing standard concrete and steel construction with a lightweight and portable carbon-fiber tube structure. The new technology is designed to ward off corrosion, double a bridge’s structural lifespan, and signifi- cantly reduce construction time and repair costs. Off-site, carbon-fiber tubes are inflated, shaped into arches and infused with resin to harden them. The tubes are then moved to the foundation’s location and filled with concrete, PHOTO COURTESY OF THE MAINE DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION producing arches as strong as steel. The arches are then covered with a fiber-reinforced decking and buried under several feet of sand. The carbon fiber protects the resin from harsh weather and extreme climates, which safety experts say is the greatest cause of bridge corrosion. In standard steel bridges, de-icing road salts and saltwater infiltrate the concrete and corrode the steel bar, which causes it to expand and crack the concrete, weakening the bridge. The design was developed by the University of Maine Advanced Structures and Composites Center and has been named “bridge in a backpack” technology because its com- ponents are lightweight and portable. Tapping Solar Power A NORTH DAKOTA electric cooperative turned to an alternative energy source to provide power to Sheridan County ranchers whose power was knocked out by an April 2010 ice storm. The storm dropped nine inches of snow on Bismarck, knocking out power to thousands in the central and southwestern regions of the state and caused more than $33 million in damage mostly to utilities, according to a request for public assistance filed by then-Gov. John Hoeven. Rather than rebuild a section of transmission line that provided power to the ranchers’ pasture wells, the Verendrye Electric Cooperative installed two solar power sites capable of generating 470 watts. The installations in McHenry and Sheridan counties were funded with $11,201 in FEMA haz- ard mitigation grant money. FEMA estimated that $29,000 PHOTO COURTESY OF BRIAN HVINDEN/FEMA was saved compared with the cost of reinstalling the approx- imately mile-long power line. “In lieu of building in new power lines to a remote site to a pasture well, if it’s summer pasture, we’ll put in solar instead of building in a power line,” said Randy Hauck, member services manager for the Verendrye Electric Cooperative, “because we can do that at a cheaper cost than building in the power line, and it provides the same service.” 16
  • 17. Security Search NEBRASKA LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIALS are implementing a search platform to connect to 17 different law enforcement data sources including records manage- ment and computer-aided dispatch systems. Instead of sift- ing through information by hand — which is what staff at the Nebraska Information and Analysis Center (NIAC) currently do — NIAC awarded a contract to Memex for its Patriarch platform, which will help officials search disparate databases across the state with a single query. The platform provides the bridge between law enforce- ment officers and private-sector partners who see something PHOTO COURTESY OF NEBRASKA INFORMATION ANALYSIS CENTER suspicious and the fusion center analysts who vet and store the data, or pass it along as appropriate. NIAC awarded a contract to Memex at a cost of just under $3 million for implementation of its Patriarch platform in May 2010. The implementation is ongoing. “Within the state, we’re defining agencies that are willing to share information with us,” said Kevin Knorr, captain of the NIAC, “and then we go out and set up a mirrored server. We put it in their facility, a mirrored server that extracts that information, which they will allow or will share with us or the fusion center. Then that information is indexed through the Memex server [and] provided as a response to a query.” Cyber-Security Monitoring STATE AND LOCAL governments are closer than ever to having a single view available of the cyber-attacks and security vulnerabilities they face, thanks to groundbreaking work by a cross-sector organization that’s bringing them together. PHOTO COURTESY OF THE MULTI-STATE INFORMATION SHARING AND ANALYSIS CENTER The nonprofit Multi-State Information Sharing and Analy- sis Center (MS-ISAC) is on the cusp of significant growth, said the organization’s chair, Will Pelgrin, in November 2010. And new participants will be able to use a threat-monitoring center recently launched by the MS-ISAC that will give state and local governments better security intelligence in near real time. By June, 14 states, seven local governments and one U.S. territory will have their active threat monitoring done at the new MS-ISAC operations facility, Pelgrin said. In 2003, MS-ISAC began with just a handful of participating govern- ments. Now all 50 states and many local governments have partnered at some level with the organization. The center’s mission encompasses threat detection, pre- vention and protection, and recovery for state, local, terri- torial and tribal governments. The organization has made a real-time dashboard of top cyber-threats available online. Emergency Management 17
  • 18. Major Player By Jim McKay James Demby Senior Technical Adviser, FEMA James Demby is the senior technical and policy adviser and program manager for the FEMA PHOTO BY DAVID KIDD National Dam Safety Program. He advises Sandra Knight, FEMA’s deputy federal insurance and mitigation administrator for mitigation, on matters pertaining to national dam safety. Demby is a professional engineer registered in Virginia and has worked for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. His work for the corps included geotechnical design projects; analysis federal perspective. Then you have state dam safety Alabama — although it does not have a legis- of military construction; and civil works projects representatives who bring expertise from the state lated dam safety program — has begun actions such as barracks complexes, military family perspective, and you have representatives from the over the last couple of years to identify the state’s housing projects, hazardous waste sites, highway private sector. You bring in these experts to look dams, and to establish, inventory and provide that bridge foundation design, federal navigation at dam safety issues from a national perspective. information to the National Inventory of Dams. channels, and levees and flood control structures. The state is taking steps toward getting a program. One state doesn’t have a dam safety program. The first step is getting a sense of what the need is. What’s the significance of that? What is the role of the National Dam In Alabama dams are regulated by the state. What about the lack of knowledge of the people Safety Program? That means they’re not being inspected, and across the country who live below dams, in The purpose of the Dam Safety Program is to there’s not a requirement for emergency action terms of the danger they’re in? reduce the risk to life and property from dam planning for high hazard-potential dams. That We provide national assistance grants to state failure; that’s the short answer. Part of that is means that within the state, they don’t necessarily dam safety programs. The hope is that they bringing together expertise and resources from have a good sense of the hazards that dams poten- will coordinate with local and state emergency federal and nonfederal communities. In the tially pose to people downstream. managers to identify the risks within their state, Dam Safety Program we have participation from By not having a dam safety program that’s legis- and with that coordination with the state dam various federal agencies that have some type of lated by the state, it can’t participate in the National safety officials and emergency managers, develop role in dams — in ownership, regulating dams Dam Safety Program, whereby FEMA provides state specific strategies within their state to address the or building dams; they have some role from the assistance grants that go to dam safety activities. dangers. One area within the Dam Safety Program 18
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  • 20. Major Player Hoover Dam is considered to be one of the top 10 construction achievements of the 20th century. is public awareness. That’s one of the functional state and the number of dams nationally that fall activities identified in the National Dam Safety under the National Inventory of Dams. [Program] Act. One concern that’s been raised from the states That’s one of the things we realized we need is that it might be more effective if the money is to improve on with the Dam Safety Program based more on risk as opposed to just a straight — providing more of an outreach strategy to formula based on the number of dams. That way communicate the risk from a broad perspective you make sure the federal investment is going to [of the dangers] to populations downstream of the areas that have the most risk. dams. On our current grants that we put out for 2010, we have some language to try to address the What areas are most at risk? Do people in those gap in awareness of dangers downstream. One of areas know how at risk they are? the initiatives in the 2010 state assistance grants The states are the front line for dam safety was to encourage state safety officials, once they because 85 percent of the nation’s 83,000 dams are identify dams that are unsafe or at risk, to coor- regulated by states. With that said, state officials dinate and provide that information to state and should have a good understanding of the dams PHOTO COURTESY OF HOOVERDAMBYPASS.ORG local emergency managers and local decision- that are at risk in their states. makers, like mayors or city council members, so It’s imperative that state dam safety officials they’ll have the situational awareness of a dam communicate that information and work with that poses a threat to a community. state and local emergency managers so that there is good situational awareness at the state and local You’ve said money probably should be distrib- levels of dams that potentially threaten popula- uted differently. Can you elaborate? tions downstream. Currently money is distributed based on the From a national perspective, that is information language in the Dam Safety Act, and that’s based we don’t collect as part of the National Dam Safety on a distribution of the number of dams in the Program. With the National Inventory of Dams, what we do have is information on the hazard- potential classification. But that’s not really a risk- based classification. It’s a classification on: If the dam fails there is — say, for high-hazard classifi- Demby holds a framed photo of the Fort cation — probably loss of life. Significant hazard Peck Dam taken by Margaret Bourke- White. The Montana dam was featured on potential means if that there’s a dam failure there the first cover of Life magazine in 1936. would be substantial economic impact down- stream. There’s a low-hazard classification; that is if the dam fails, there would be no impact to life or property. But those are not risk-informed clas- sifications; they’re based on consequences. How concerned are you about the threat of a terrorist attack on the nation’s dams? The Infrastructure Protection Office in the Department of Homeland Security primarily addresses the terrorist threat. The whole dam sector is broken down into two parts: FEMA has the responsibility of dam safety and DHS specifi- cally looks at the security side — so they’re more focused on the terrorist-sabotage area. With that said, as far as the critical infrastruc- ture and the sectors identified as part of the crit- ical infrastructure, dams are one of the critical infrastructure areas, so there is great concern. We PHOTO BY DAVID KIDD want to make sure that there is a national frame- work and approach to make sure that our critical infrastructure is being hardened and protected from terrorist threats. k 20
  • 21. You are there to protect them. We are here to help you. As an emergency management professional, your job is to help protect them. If the worst happens its your job to help them get their lives back. We call it resilience. And we’re your resilience partner. o other rm has the depth of e perience or the breadth of services and technologies to help you achieve community and organization resilience. We can help you prepare, respond, communicate and recover. Find out more about how O’Brien’s can be your resiliency partner at: www.obriensrm.com Call us at 281-3209796 Email us at email@obriensrm.com. Prepare. Respond. Communicate. Recover. obriensrm.com
  • 22. PHOTO ©SEBASTIAN VANDREY/ FLICKR 22 THE LOOMING
  • 23. UNDERESTIMATING THE CYBER-THREAT TO OUR NATION’S CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE WOULD PROVE PERILOUS. BY L AU RIE J. FLYNN | CON T RIBU TING W RIT ER
  • 24. ©ISTOCKPHOTO.COM/TEBNAD A cyber-attack could start small, bringing down an electrical grid, but grow into a network of outages across the country’s critical infrastructure. period. The impact, Chronister said, could be devastating. Yet effective protection from cyber-threats requires unprecedented cooperation between the public and private sectors. Unfortunately the two sides are not even close. To the private sector, the federal govern- ment is falling dramatically short of meeting its cyber-security expectations. According to the Government Accountability Office’s Critical Infrastructure Protection report, fewer than one- third of private-sector respondents said they felt the federal government was meeting their expectations for “timely and actionable” infor- mation and alerts related to cyber-threats. And roughly four out of five private-sector respon- dents indicated that they felt the mechanisms for sharing information between the public and private sectors were inadequate. The report also showed that federal agencies weren’t meeting private industry’s expectations for assisting with security tests, offering training opportunities or providing necessary security clearances. These companies reported a lack of a “single centralized government cyber-information source.” These shortcomings, the report con- idespread blackouts sweep across company. “Companies think they are secure cluded, hinder the private sector’s ability to thwart W work collapses. the country, traffic signals go haywire, global financial markets freeze, the Pentagon’s data net- These calamities and much worse are exactly because they are compliant with standards, but they really don’t know enough. There’s a false sense of security.” The pace at which hackers and other intrud- ers are inventing ways of breaking into private cyber-attacks. But federal agencies say the private sector shares responsibility for shortcomings in the partnership. Public agencies would like the private sector to be more willing to share pro- what could happen in the event of a large-scale networks, including critical U.S. infrastructure, prietary information with federal agencies — “attack” on computer networks in the United is far outpacing the ability to protect them, said something it’s currently reluctant to do — the States, or so the experts say. The problem will Chronister. At the same time, people routinely report states. Restrictions within the private start small, say, bringing down an electrical underestimate the damage a region would sus- sector on the kind of information it can share grid within minutes. However, what may have tain if its electrical network, perhaps even its make it difficult to provide individualized treat- seemed like an isolated incident could create water supply, were to go down for an extended ment to any single business sector. scores of network outages across the country’s Jeffrey Carr, a cyber-security expert and critical infrastructure. To many in the American author of Inside Cyber Warfare, said the private military, federal agencies and high-tech com- FBI PRIORITIES network operators, most notably the nation’s panies, the threat from America’s fiercest 1. International-domestic terrorism largest utility companies, should be blamed adversaries is ominous. Their target isn’t neces- for addressing security delays, not the public 2. Foreign counterintelligence sector. Most of the nation’s energy companies, sarily military, but rather the networks owned and maintained by private companies with 3. Cyber-crime for example, have been very adversarial toward household names like Consolidated Edison, 4. Public corruption federal security efforts from the start. “Private Citigroup, Exxon and Google. And to many of industry has been dragging its feet, finding 5. Civil rights these gatekeepers, it’s not a matter of if, but when ways to be excluded,” he said. — unless something is done now to shore up 6. Transnational criminal enterprise security of these networks. 7. White-collar crime Invisible Threat “There’s a perfect storm coming,” said David The threat of cyber-attacks has been steadily 8. Violent crime Chronister, a self-described “ethical hacker” increasing for several years, while it has become and founder of Parameter Security, a consulting SOURCE: BRIAN HERRICK, FBI much clearer that the United States is unprepared 24
  • 25. to protect itself against such attacks. Estimates a malicious computer worm found its way The system would work by analyzing the vec- vary as to the exact cost of cyber-crime, but in into an Iranian nuclear plant after infecting tors where cyber-attacks could occur, typically a 2009 speech, President Barack Obama put the thousands of computer systems worldwide. the points at which a private network connects 2007-2008 combined total at $8 billion. The incident, caused by a malicious software to the Internet. The sources of cyber attacks take many forms, from individual unauthorized hackers access- ing private networks, criminal groups seeking “Private industry has been dragging its heels for years on monetary gain, to individuals or terrorist orga- this, and it’s something that has to be done.” nizations attempting to break into critical data — JEFFREY CARR, CYBER-SECURITY EXPERT AND AUTHOR OF INSIDE CYBER WARFARE networks to threaten national security, perhaps even cripple the economy. It is this last category that poses the greatest national threat. program called Stuxnet, made it glaringly But when news of the program leaked last So-called botnets are a particularly danger- obvious how vulnerable the world’s critical July in The Wall Street Journal, not everyone ous security threat because they can remain computer networks really are, and perhaps viewed Perfect Citizen as an asset. Instead, pri- nearly invisible while siphoning data to a new more importantly, just how difficult it can be vacy watchdogs and consumer groups viewed destination. These intrusions focus on stealing to find the source of malicious programs. The the program as providing the nation’s lead- intellectual property, rather than taking down exact origin of the Stuxnet worm has never ing eavesdropper with another opportunity to networks. Perhaps the most malicious form of been discovered, but its ferocity — along invade individuals’ privacy. cyber-attack seen so far is the denial of service, with its surreptitiousness — sent shock waves The NSA, long known for its eavesdropping which is when hackers send repeated requests through the federal agencies charged with activities, responded to the report by denying to a network to overload and shut it down. preventing such attacks and showed the pri- that Perfect Citizen involves any monitoring Reports of cyber-attacks over the past few vate industry just how little is known about activity or places sensors on networks, as the years illustrate the seriousness of the problem securing the nation’s infrastructure. story asserted. Rather, the NSA countered that and its potentially devastating impact on private the program is simply a way for the agency to industry and public safety. While more than 100 New Approach, New Controversy assess a network’s vulnerabilities. countries can launch cyber-attacks, China is con- The most recent approach to protecting Carr argues that people misunderstand sidered the greatest threat to the United States, U.S. infrastructure from cyber-attacks came in Perfect Citizen’s goal. The program, he said, is and relations between the two countries have the form of a new program from the National providing long-overdue, much-needed security become fraught with hostility and suspicions Security Agency (NSA). Called Perfect Citizen, on critical infrastructure. “I consider it more or over cyber-security. According to Chronister, the program is intended to monitor threats to less a housekeeping issue, not widespread sur- Russia is considered an increasing threat as well. the country’s infrastructure, including electrical veillance,” he said. “This is a program to test the In March 2008, according the Critical Infra- networks, nuclear power plants and transpor- vulnerabilities of a network. Private industry structure Protection report, the Department tation systems, and to trigger an alarm in the has been dragging its heels for years on this, and of Defense and other federal agencies and event of an impending intrusion. it’s something that has to be done.” contractors reported that their computer net- works were targets of intrusion, and the attacks appeared to have originated in China. The threat of cyber-attacks in the United PHOTO COURTESY OF RICHARD O’REILLY/ FEMA In 2009, North Korea was suspected of an States has been increasing and could cause widespread blackouts. attack that started July Fourth weekend and took down the Web servers of the U.S. Treasury, Secret Service and Federal Trade Commission, among others. (South Korean government Web servers were hit at roughly the same time.) And in 2010, it came to light that more than 30 private companies, many of them in Silicon Valley, had experienced intrusions of their data networks. Of those companies, Google said it had been the victim of a “highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastruc- ture originating from China that resulted in the theft of intellectual property from Google.” But perhaps the most dramatic example of a cyber-attack came last summer when