September is National Preparedness Month (NPM), a time for communities to reflect on how they prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters. As the federal role evolves, now is the time for states and local governments to set priorities and start implementing programs that deliver essential services. In this environment, returning to foundational principles, collaboration, shared responsibility, and cross-lifeline integration, may provide clarity and direction. These principles can help communities manage today’s challenges while preparing for those ahead. Hagerty is proud to work alongside our partners in this effort, helping communities strengthen resilience, build lasting partnerships, and respond and recover stronger.
Shifting Federal Roles, Local Responsibilities
As the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA’s) role reshapes, communities should explore alternative strategies such as new funding models, stronger regional coordination, and cross-sector partnerships to sustain the capabilities their communities depend on. In this environment, local officials will need to monitor how policy decisions affect their programs and take proactive steps to sustain critical functions. Exploring solutions such as regional mutual aid, public–private partnerships, and innovative funding approaches can help ensure services remain reliable before, during, and after disasters.
Lifelines: A Framework for Action
By grounding preparedness in the FEMA Community Lifelines framework, communities can strengthen resilience, expand options for sustaining essential services, and recover more quickly when disaster strikes. This construct offers a familiar method that communities can rely on to navigate a shifting federal landscape. Applied effectively, this framework can help jurisdictions identify requirements and gaps, engage partners across government, nonprofits, and industry, and connect local capabilities to priority needs. Success requires more than technical expertise. It requires an understanding of the perspectives, motivations, and incentives of different stakeholders and aligning them toward shared goals.
Hagerty as a Trusted Partner
As responsibilities shift closer to the state and local level, it is likely that emergency managers will face new demands in coordinating and sustaining critical functions. Hagerty supports this work by connecting stakeholders across government, nonprofits, and industry, and by applying our knowledge of the evolving federal landscape, emergency management principles, and the intersections with lifelines such as Energy, Security, and Transportation. By aligning these perspectives, we help jurisdictions build partnerships that strengthen preparedness today and resilience for the future. The sections below highlight several key lifelines and provide examples of how Hagerty has helped clients put this approach into practice.
Energy Lifeline: Powering Resilience
The Energy Lifeline is integral for providing safe, reliable power to communities, businesses, and governments through electric power and liquid fuel critical infrastructure. Disruptions in energy delivery can have a debilitating impact on other community lifelines as most services depend on energy in some capacity to sustain operations. For example, disruptions to electric services, be it generation, transmission, or distribution, may impact communications networks and first responders’ ability to coordinate. This can create cascading impacts on safety and security operations. The resilience of the North American bulk power system is challenged by ever evolving physical and cyber threats, aging infrastructure, and reliance on overseas supply chains. As such, federal priorities and budgetary requests for Fiscal Year (FY) 2026 reflect a renewed focus on energy security, hardening energy systems against threats, and emergency response coordination.
Hagerty works with a variety of Energy Sector clients, including State Energy Offices, bringing a wealth of emergency management experience to connect incident response management with energy sector priorities and capabilities.
- Hagerty is currently supporting the development of a Concept of Operations (CONOPS) Plan for an investor-owned utility that will define operational emergency protocols and procedures for response to a large-scale emergency. This plan will help organize response operations to provide the utility with the ability to mount a more effective and efficient response and restore power as safely and quickly as possible.
Security Lifeline: Protecting Communities
The Security Lifeline is foundational to protecting communities across the nation as it ensures the protection of people, systems, and assets from threats ranging from acts of terrorism to cyber-attacks to civil unrest. Key challenges today include the increasing sophistication of cyber and physical attacks, the need to safeguard critical infrastructure, and the difficulty of coordinating across multiple jurisdictions and sectors. Recognizing these risks, federal priorities and Notices of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) such as the Homeland Security Grant Program (HSGP) and the Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI) underscore the importance of enhancing security and preparedness across sectors.
Hagerty brings deep and proven expertise in helping clients translate federal, state, and local priorities into actionable strategies. We support jurisdictions in developing emergency plans, conducting threat and vulnerability assessments, facilitating impactful training, as well as designing, conducting, and evaluating exercises of all types. Further, our experience allows clients to not only meet relevant compliance requirements but also build sustainable, integrated security programs.
- Hagerty designed, facilitated, and evaluated a series of tabletop exercises for a major metropolitan area that examined how regional partners would respond to and recover from a mass fatality event. The exercise brought together numerous partners including but not limited to: public safety, emergency management, law enforcement, emergency medical services (EMS), and public information. This event provided an opportunity for participants to discuss how they would coordinate and communicate during such an event, improving the region’s ability to protect themselves against evolving security threats.
Transportation Lifeline: Keeping Communities Moving
The Transportation Lifeline is essential to keeping communities moving by enabling the safe, secure, and reliable movement of people and goods. Disruptions—whether caused by natural disasters, cyberattacks, infrastructure failures, or intentional acts—can paralyze supply chains, hinder emergency response, and impact economic stability. Key challenges include aging infrastructure, interdependencies with energy/communications systems, and the complexity of coordinating across multiple modes of transportation and jurisdictions.
Federal priorities emphasize transportation resilience through programs such as the HSGP or the Port Security Grant Program (PSGP), which can be used to fund preparedness, mitigation, and continuity planning. These NOFOs highlight the importance of ensuring that transportation networks remain operational during and after disruptive incidents.
Hagerty helps clients translate these federal priorities into practical strategies by supporting emergency planning, continuity of operations planning/testing, as well as exercises that examine cross-sector coordination/communication between transportation, emergency management, and private operators. We specialize in supporting preparedness activities for transportation entities of all types (e.g., maritime port, airport, railways) that align with federal requirements while also addressing local and regional realities.
- Hagerty is currently supporting the development and maintenance of a continuity program for a transportation authority from the ground up. This includes not only developing a continuity framework but also developing and conducting exercises to validate continuity plans. This work is helping the authority better support its community during and after potential future disasters.
Integrating Lifelines for Collective Impact
Preparedness does not happen in isolation. Energy, Security, and Transportation lifelines—and others—are interconnected, and disruptions in one often cascade into others. The FEMA Community Lifelines framework helps emergency managers not only understand each lifeline, but also how they intersect to deliver the essential services communities rely on. Hagerty brings the knowledge and proven experience to integrate these perspectives, align diverse partners, and develop solutions that strengthen resilience across the whole community.