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Supply Chain Resilience: an Urgent Priority

The cascading impact of disruptions to international supply chains has emerged as a key threat to the nation’s resilience, undercutting the maintenance and repair schedules of critical infrastructure sites and limiting access to affordable healthy foods and consumer goods.

Though the public at large generally understands the problem as one of delay and inconvenience, producers and supply chain experts are acknowledging that these problems are worsening and could soon lead to outages, breakdowns, and increased resource insecurity.

In efforts to address this, state and local leaders should gain awareness of the evolving supply chain situation and develop mitigation plans. This solution is not easy; however, emergency management has a key role to play in the ongoing communication among stakeholders to increase visibility and the development of cross-sector strategy aimed at supporting the private sector and prioritizing corrective measures.

In Rochester, Minnesota, power utility operators recently reported that the lead time on securing a fiber-optic cable has gone from four months to more than a year. Earlier this year, the United States (US) Department of Commerce (DOC) released a report warning that the semiconductor supply chain was in a “fragile” state with manufacturing fabrication plants operating at more than 90 percent capacity given the high-demand for computer chips for a number of products – from your cell phone to your car, to critical medical devices. To solve these issues, private sector leadership is also critical – the supply chain is almost entirely composed of private sector relationships that are invisible to other sectors. 

Inflation of materials for critical infrastructure has forced several states to reassess road and bridge repairs for 2022. For example, the Michigan Department of Transportation regularly plans for a four percent inflation in its budgets, but is now charting a six to seven percent increase above the original budget. Additionally, a number of pressures on food markets – from geo-political crises to the COVID-19 pandemic – have also continued to increase prices and lower access. 

Understanding the 21st Century Supply Chain

A supply chain is the network of production and enterprise that unify to create a product and deliver it for sale to the end user. The chain can include a truck driver who transports a product across state lines. Increasingly, it has included online distribution agents who may rely on multiple delivery agents like Amazon.

Based on our experience, once disorganization sets in – the compounded impact of missed delivery and production dates – products can sit in a warehouse due to a delivery backlog, and because no single actor is working to mitigate the impact of the disruption, prioritization is market-driven and can take time, causing gaps in service. In efforts to confront this challenge, the US House of Representatives passed The America Competes Act, providing over $100 billion to strengthen domestic supply chains. 

However, at this time, it is unclear how comprehensive federal action will be and it will likely take time to have a meaningful impact on immediate circumstances.

Supply Chain Resilience at Regional and Local Levels

Even though addressing supply chain issues takes time, there are things regional and local leaders can do to help strengthen their supply chain mitigation efforts. Here are three ways local and regional leaders can build solutions and prepare to make the best use of any new incoming resources.

1. Leverage regional/multi-jurisdiction organizations to develop supply chain resilience work teams or work groups that include both private sector leaders and non-governmental organizations. 

Regional planning, governance, and coordinating institutions were designed to confront complex, cross sector challenges and have established many of the key relationships necessary to gain situational awareness. Developing a cross-sector supply chain work group to better understand your region’s unique challenges is a strong first step.

The Centralina Council of Governments, an organization of more than 70 municipalities located in the Central Piedmont of North Carolina, partnered with the Center for Regional Economic Competitiveness (CREC) to analyze which industries are connected to one another through supply and distribution.Partnering with a regional Council of Government to approach the problem of situational awareness could be a key strategy to gain research capacity, convening power, and regional understanding.. 

This approach can also synergize efforts to identify and secure resources. For example, the recently restarted Regional Catastrophic Preparedness Grant Program (RCPGP) is a federal grant program to close known capability gaps and support local actors in developing solutions.

2. Identify key infrastructure owners/operators and proactively support dynamic private sector continuity planning for all elements of production.

Regional trade organizations, industry groups, and private sector stakeholders can show leadership by proactively mapping their supply chains and identifying key pressure points. This does not have to be a novel effort, but built on the existing capability of partner organizations to ensure they are able to continue their essential services and have an avenue to create awareness of actual or potential disruption. Private sector actors can collaborate to develop data dashboards that chart shortages of key resources, changes in suppliers, increasing demand, and anticipated downstream impacts.

Increased situational awareness and an active forum for information exchange and advocacy allows a more coordinated community-level response. Supply chain experts are exploring how public-private partnerships could be developed to support and finance these measures, even while acknowledging the risks of introducing top-down approaches.

Based on our experience working through similar challenges with our clients, there are limitations of approaching this task solely as an exercise in documenting corporate relationships and business practices. One of these limitations is that relationships must be understood in the context of shock (disasters and unanticipated events) and community stress (the challenges experienced by communities due to specific characteristics and local economies). 

3. Create regional, cross-state compacts for the sharing of key and critical goods and services, supported by government coordination and communication.

Developing policies that promote resource sharing and resource re-routing could extend the viability of existing products and maximize current resource levels. We assert that government can play an important role in communicating to the public to prevent and limit hoarding and over-buying. Typically, disaster responders have worked with state and federal government officials to shift resources after a shock and to restore the functionality of the private sector. Prep-planning and policy support for these maneuvers would increase efficiency. 

In this non-traditional disaster environment, we need to best understand how the government can best support and restore conventional systems to meet community needs.

Conclusion

Mitigating disruptions begins with building relationships, gaining strategic awareness and collaborating across sectors.Global supply chains have been disrupted now for more than two years and, given continued geopolitical impacts, there is seemingly no end in sight. Leaders at every level – even those whose portfolio does not traditionally include commerce – will need to quickly plan and prepare for these impacts.

Harrison Newton is a Senior Managing Associate at Hagerty Consulting. Prior to joining Hagerty, he spent nearly a decade in public service with Washington, DC. During his tenure with DC, he was responsible for establishing the District’s first Resilience Office, where he ultimately served as the Deputy Chief Resilience Officer responsible for promoting resiliency programs across various District departments and agencies. 

Tory Littlefield is a Managing Associate within the Preparedness Division at Hagerty Consulting. Prior to joining Hagerty, Mrs. Littlefield spent seven years as an emergency management planner in Vermont with a regional planning commission. 

Taking “Fusion” to the Next Level: How Hagerty Supports Public-Private Sector Intelligence Coordination

Recent civil unrest across the United States demonstrates the need for coordinated information and intelligence sharing amongst public safety agencies and the private sector. To facilitate this necessary two-way intelligence and information flow, private sector entities should establish a strong relationship with their local fusion center. Hagerty endeavors to facilitate this relationship-building by supporting both the public and private sector with high-level strategic planning, staff augmentation for specific roles, and  multi-agency, multi-jurisdictional communications exercises.

An increasing number of fusion centers have emerged within the private sector. Often called global operations centers, these centers are associated with major corporations and gather intelligence to understand and stay ahead of the information landscape, like their public sector counterparts. These centers’ mission is to protect business operations, brand, employees, and facilities. By establishing a strong relationship with local fusion centers, the private sector can support the whole community and our country’s ability to prevent, respond to, and recover from threats to public safety.

Fusion centers provide a unique perspective on threats to their state or locality by collecting and communicating critical intelligence information across all-hazards. They also serve as the primary conduit between frontline response personnel, state and local leadership, and the federal government. Government-run fusion centers identify and understand critical incidents as they unfold, which is then shared with the decisionmakers that determine the allocation of resources and communicate with the public to ensure  safety. As national responses to civil unrest have demonstrated,  the whole community  is responsible for ensuring public safety. Traditional public safety agencies (i.e., law enforcement, fire protection, emergency medical services) are no longer the only ones with a significant role  To ensure a successful response, each stakeholder in the whole community is a part of the Information Sharing Environment (ISE).  

Figure 1. Whole Community Participants in the Information Sharing Environment

Hospital and healthcare facilities, public health departments and emergency management agencies, religious and community-based organizations, private sector businesses, and individual citizens are all considered whole community participants. When fusion centers receive  information from all of these participants, it helps to build their understanding of  threats or incidents.  

Figure 2. Private Sector Information Sharing During Civil Unrest Supports Public Safety 

Timely, trusted information sharing amongst all stakeholders is essential to our national security and vital to maintaining public safety as neither government nor the private sector alone has the knowledge or resources to do it alone. Private sector  information on risks and hazards affecting their business,  combined with the information shared by other whole community stakeholders, helps build a holistic national threat picture — better informing the entire federal, state, and urban-area fusion center Network to keep people safe. 

Hagerty Can Help 

Hagerty Consulting is a national leader in active threat preparedness and has carried out hundreds of exercises and resiliency-building projects for public and private sector clients that aim to build comprehensive preparedness program management, including intelligence and information sharing. Hagerty has the tools and relationships to bridge the gap between public and private fusion centers and facilitate engagement from whole community stakeholders across the ISE. 

Hunter Seeker Exercise  

Hagerty is made up of professionals who developed their expertise in diverse environments—including the private and public sectors, military, and traditional and non-traditional intelligence sectors. Rooted in this experience, Hagerty developed Hunter Seeker, an exercise concept designed specifically to evaluate information sharing systems between whole community participants of the ISE. Hagerty has conducted multiple Hunter Seeker exercises, helping fusion centers and their partners develop, test, and hone their intelligence and information sharing capabilities. This exercise presents a scalable, scenario-based exercise aiming to build intelligence and information sharing relationships across the private and public sectors.  

Staffing Surge Support 

The  public and private sector can call on the Hagerty Response Task Force (RTF). The Hagerty Response Task Force consists of a cadre of emergency managers and other professionals who are willing and able to respond to affected areas nation–wide. The Hagerty RTF can provide staffing surge support specifically to augment intelligence and information sharing through: 

Strategic Planning Services and Change Management 

Through strategy development, executive roundtables, leadership seminars, and workshops, Hagerty is poised to help  build an innovative and collaborative path forward. These activities will   allow for the exchange of best practices among intelligence professionals and participants will come away with contacts, strategies, and ideas about the industry’s path forward. After a thorough discovery process, Hagerty can develop a Change Management Toolkit and tailored plans to address: 

  • Stakeholder Management and Engagement 
  • Team Development 
  • Communications 
  • Operations Process Impact Analysis and Action 
  • Training and Exercise Needs Implementations Plan

Timely communication and information sharing is an enduring area of improvement across all agencies around the country for every threat and hazard agencies face. The first step to improving  is to formalize mechanisms for  sharing and strengthen relationships within the whole community, especially through public-private partnerships. 

Glossary of Terms Used 

Civil unrest: In the context of this article, civil unrest relates to recent peaceful protests and other First Amendment-protected activities that could impact public safety (e.g., traffic impacts), as well as recent riots, looting, and vandalism.

Community-Based Organizations: Organizations, often local, that work directly with community members and have a strong understanding of the needs, vulnerabilities, and desired improvements of the community.

Fusion Centers: designed to connect intelligence and information management professionals and strengthen the Information Sharing Environment. Though fusion centers have traditionally been governmental agency-owned and operated, many private sector fusion centers have been created as organizations across industries see their value in protecting their people, products, facilities, and brand.

Information Sharing Environment (ISE): network of people, programs, and organizations that support intelligence and information sharing.

Network: There are 80 government-run fusion centers around the country which make up the National Network of Fusion Centers. Collaboratively, the Network brings critical context and value to Homeland Security and Law Enforcement.

Althea de Guzman is the Lead of the Information and Intelligence Sharing service line at Hagerty. She manages the St. Louis Regional Portfolio, which includes the St. Louis Complex Coordinated Terrorist Attack (CCTA) Program. Althea leverages her experience in healthcare and project management to support hospital and healthcare coalition initiatives in the region and around the country. Recently, Althea leveraged her expertise in the development and execution of multi-site, multi-jurisdictional, and multi-disciplinary exercises and translated it into a remote environment, leading Hagerty’s virtual exercise offerings. Althea graduated from and is affiliated with The University of Chicago, supporting emerging professionals to understand complex adaptive systems in emergency management and homeland security.  

Anne Armstrong is an Associate at Hagerty. While pursuing her Master’s degree in Washington, D.C., Anne worked on federal policy and strategy in the non-profit space and at the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Policy. Anne has contributed to a diverse portfolio of projects, including a federal strategy to protect the nation’s critical infrastructure and a recovery plan for an international NGO in the wake of violent conflict. Prior to joining Hagerty, Anne was living and working in Amman, Jordan, as a Boren Fellow. 

On 100 Days of Deployment and the Importance of Intelligence in Salt Lake County’s Response

THURSDAY, JUNE 25, 2020 AS OF 4:00 PM EDT

Over the past 110 days, I have been deployed to Salt Lake County, leading a team of Hagerty professionals supporting the emergent response, and early recovery effort happening here in Utah. The challenges had been unprecedented, and the collaboration, innovation, and dedication demonstrated by all responders – from those in the Emergency Coordination Center (ECC), to the quarantine and isolation facilities, hospitals, testing locations, firefighter crews, law enforcement personnel, and beyond – is exemplary of communities and partners rising to meet their objectives.

Profile of Salt Lake County, Utah

Salt Lake County’s first confirmed case of COVID-19 was documented on March 4, a date which seems ages ago. Over the past 100+ days, the County has been successful in maintaining pressure on the virus:

  1. We were concerned about the rate of cases increasing exponentially. High transmission rates of the virus between individuals would have a compounding impact.
  2. We were concerned of the hospital systems having to resort to crisis standards of care and collapse. The potential and ever-present threat of exponential growth could lead hospital beds, Intensive Care Units (ICUs), and ventilators to become a precious commodity. Overrunning these resources could lead to additional deaths.
  3. We were concerned that we could not understand the spread of the virus in the community. Understanding COVID-19 has been limited due to its novel nature. Knowledge of its characteristics continues to be explored and documented.

A key of being able and to continue to overcome these challenges has been the role of intelligence operations as part of Salt Lake County’s COVID-19 response.

Salt Lake County’s COVID-19 Response Intelligence Section

Understanding the value of data and information that is critical to informing evidence-based decisions has been a foundational pillar of Salt Lake County’s emergent response efforts. Two weeks into the response, Unified Command (comprised of the County Mayor, Director of Emergency Management, and Director of the Health Department) understood that a comprehensive intelligence capability was needed to support response efforts and established the Intelligence Section. As Intelligence Section Chief, my directives from Unified Command were clear:

  • Conduct analysis of COVID-19 and its cascading effects in Salt Lake County.
  • Develop comprehensive situational awareness by examining and monitoring trends and challenges that link Salt Lake County to the state, national, and global response.
  • Work with the other Sections and provide action-oriented reporting to support the emergent response efforts.
  • Ensure findings were being distributed to response partners.

Formation of the Intelligence Section based on the National Incident Management System (NIMS) and Incident Command System (ICS) seemed novel yet necessary for a pandemic emergency. Critical to our efforts were:

  • Intent from Unified Command. Along with the directives mentioned previously, the Intelligence Section was provided milestones of success and a vision for products – key tenets of Intent from Unified Command. This Unity of Command from County leadership – trust with one another and the response teams; a forward-leaning, scientific-driven approach; and clear objectives to drive action – allowed the Intelligence Section to think creatively and collaboratively. Our efforts broke beyond merely understanding the trends of the virus but allowed us to study its impact on vulnerable populations, attrition of public safety agencies, and the reactivation of Salt Lake County.
  • A Multi-Agency Approach. When information belongs to no one, its impact in a dynamic and uncertain response can be valuable to all. The Intelligence Section, while being attached to Salt Lake County’s Epidemiological Bureau, was not exclusively staffed by public health professionals. This unique relationship allowed epidemiologists to focus on disease surveillance, while creating a collaborative space for multidisciplinary analysis. Our team is multi-agency and has representation from firefighters, emergency management, law enforcement, and the Hagerty contract team. This approach facilitates deeper analysis into the behavior and effects of COVID-19 across Salt Lake County, including its communities, populations, public safety agencies, and hospital systems.
  • Actionable Intelligence. The end products of the Intelligence Section could not be just a thesis of discovery or repackaging of another document. The products need to support or elicit an action focused on helping Salt Lake County’s response efforts. In the initial briefing with members of the Intelligence Section, a clear and simple phrase emerged: “So what?” Throughout our operation, the Intelligence Section challenged themselves and one another to produce intelligence notes and analysis that could be directly injected into and inform the decision-making process. Documents were designed to be short and get to the point, with additional materials accessible to operational leaders. Tomes of paper would get our Section Chiefs nowhere. This mindset of action, even in the “brain trust” of ICS Sections was key to helping Salt Lake County instill targeted interventions and strategic messaging into the response.

As Intelligence Section Chief, David Schuld led a multi-agency effort to collect information and produce analysis that would support the evidence-based decision-making process of Salt Lake County’s COVID-19 response. Activities included advising Unified Command, producing reports, participating in Command and General Staff meetings, and facilitating portions of briefings related to information and analysis.

Looking Back, Preparing for the Long Haul

Looking back through my days of being Intelligence Section Chief, the following initiatives come to mind in Salt Lake County being able to lean forward and counter the initial spread of the virus:

  • Integration across major organizations. A key to our success in the initial weeks of response was an ability for major organizations across Salt Lake County to come together for a common cause. In events like a pandemic, time is a valuable resource. Relationships between leaders and agencies are key to being able to effectively address an incident. I applaud the professionalism and dedication of the traditional and non-traditional responders in Salt Lake County. I saw emergency management principles be applied to response. I also saw individuals such as librarians and arts and culture personnel lean forward in the interest of their community, becoming teams to support quarantine and isolation facilities, running Points of Distribution (PODs) for Personal Protection Equipment (PPE), and providing aid to high-risk and vulnerable populations. Ego has no place in an emergency incident, and it is critical that leaders instill this ethos prior to the response phase. We are all in this together.
  • Planning, training, and exercises. Organizations in Salt Lake County had worked on building out plans that could support responding to a pandemic. Continuity of Operations (COOP) and comprehensive emergency management planning initiatives were key to those working in the ECC and in the field to have an understanding what they should be doing and how their actions impacted meeting objectives of the incident.

Exercises are also critical to refining capabilities, even now in the midst of the long haul of sustained response. Key to information sharing and analysis was Salt Lake County’s participation in Hagerty’s Hunter Seeker exercise. This innovative exercise places participating agencies into a multi-day exercise environment where intelligence operations can be refined and gaps in communication and coordination within the Information Sharing Environment (ISE) can be identified. Whether the incident scenario is a pandemic, an active threat, or a natural disaster like a wildland fire, exercises like Hunter Seeker are critical to strengthening information sharing capabilities.

Looking into the future, communities should plan for vaccinations and setting up and operating PODs. The challenges of these processes are immense for COVID-19. Communities should engage in advance planning and strengthen their operational readiness by assessing plans, developing training, and conducting exercises.

  • Emphasis on enabling. I have mentioned this line once already, but it is worth restating: We are all in this together. Collaboration and a mindset of enabling the whole community to participate in response efforts is key. COVID-19 is unlike any other disaster before – no other incident in our nation’s history has had every state and territory in the United States (US) under a simultaneous Federal Disaster Declaration. .

No idea is a bad one. To Incident Commanders and Section Chiefs across the country: enable your teams to address challenges and find solutions, even if they have never been considered in emergency management before. The creativity and dedication I have seen here in Salt Lake County never ceases to amaze me. Empower teams, implement innovation (including the establishment of an Intelligence Section in a pandemic response), and respect the value your team members bring to the response. These are important characteristics of crisis leadership, and its value is even more accentuated with a sustained response.

More than 100 days in, I offer communities and responders across the country with these words of advice and perspective: our efforts to maintain pressure on the virus have only begun. At the time this Disaster Discourse was published, there is no treatment to COVID-19, and we do not have a vaccine. Our hard work in maintaining pressure on the virus to date has been contingent on the public’s participation in prevention and mitigation efforts, including practicing social distancing, wearing face coverings when social distancing is a challenge, and demonstrating health etiquette. The public has also been key in investigating spread of the virus through testing and contact tracing. As we move further away from the initial days of COVID-19 in our communities, we must overcome the fatigue of this long response with steadfastness and vigilance. The participation of the public, as well as maintaining strong intelligence capabilities, is key to our work. Our efforts continue to matter.

I want to thank all those deployed with me and working across the country and in their communities to respond to COVID-19. Keep up the fight…your dedication to the cause is seen every day.

David Schuld is a Deputy Director of Preparedness with Hagerty Consulting and is currently deployed to Salt Lake County to support COVID-19 response and recovery. Mr. Schuld served as Intelligence Section Chief for Salt Lake County’s emergent response to COVID-19, and has now been seconded as Special Assistant to the Mayor for COVID-19 Response and Recovery, supporting the sustained health response and the implementation of the adaptive and long-term recovery planning initiatives on behalf of the Mayor of Salt Lake County. Prior to COVID-19, Mr. Schuld led Hagerty’s Active Threat Portfolio, and is a nationally recognized leader in comprehensive and integrated response planning and operations. His policy experience includes serving as a military research analyst for the European Parliament in Brussels, serving as Military Legislative Assistant for a member of the US House of Representatives, political advisor to the British Army, and Crisis Management Advisor for the British Government in the US. Mr. Schuld is originally from Ohio, and studied political science at John Carroll University, has a graduate degree in public policy and administration from Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium, and completed Air Command and Staff College with the US Air Force.

How State and Local Governments Can Assume a Greater Role in Disaster Recovery

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) continues to write guidance for how state and local governments can assume a greater role in disaster recovery. In its latest effort to this end, FEMA published the State-led Public Assistance Guide (SLPAG – the Guide) – the first of its kind. The goal of this new policy is to clarify roles and responsibilities states may elect to share with FEMA or lead on their own in FEMA’s largest program, Public Assistance (PA). The PA program reimburses governments and nonprofits for post-disaster emergency response, infrastructure restoration, and hazard mitigation activities. However, as written, the Guide appears to require significant state capacity without a financial incentive.

State-led PA is voluntary, only for small-sized presidentially declared disasters, and does not confer additional authority to states for resolving federal recovery policy disputes.  As such, it is not clear why states would be eager to take on added responsibility, which carries extra risk.

As noted in a previous post, state and local government leaders are increasingly responsible for shouldering the disaster recovery burden. FEMA’s 2018-2022 Strategic Plan articulates this vision to have recovery be “federally supported, state managed, and locally executed.” This new FEMA Guide focuses on the middle point: increasing the states’ recovery management role.

What does the State-led PA Guide say?

The new State-Led PA Guide was created to have states, territories, and tribes oversee certain recovery efforts for smaller-scale disasters–called Level III. FEMA defines Level III disasters as those that require only a “moderate amount of direct federal assistance,” two steps down from the more severe Levels I and II. It relates specifically to the level of FEMA staff activated per disaster.

If a state expresses interest in State-led PA for a Level III disaster, FEMA reviews its existing capacity, capabilities, and disaster experience. FEMA must approve State-led PA, but the Guide does not outline clear criteria by which FEMA will make this decision. What is clear is that not all states are good candidates.

The Guide outlines three roles in which states can assume extra responsibility:

  1. Customer service.
  2. Site inspections.
  3. Recovery project scoping and costing.

These roles can be shared with or kept independent from FEMA staff on the ground. Recipients do not have to take on all roles. FEMA and the state will determine the right mix of roles when reviewing existing capacity, capabilities, and experience.

What does FEMA hope to achieve?

FEMA claims that State-led PA will yield several benefits, including:

  • Continuity of contact, which assumes that state personnel assigned to each government applying for federal assistance will be capable advocates and will not change.
  • Reduction of appeals/audits, which assumes that state personnel can help resolve disputes upfront and better assist local governments with federal compliance.
  • Tailored customer service, which assumes that states are more familiar with recovering communities than FEMA would be.

The Guide informs certain flexibility in the process, as it “is not intended to prescribe” recovery operations but rather give “broad guidance that can be adapted” to state resources.

The big-picture goal here is for FEMA to preserve its resources in Level III disasters to more adequately respond to larger Level I and II disasters.

Why should states be cautious if presented with this option?

The Guide provides clear operational choices for states to assume specific recovery roles that were traditionally fully or mostly led by FEMA. However, while this may make recovery broadly more efficient, states are not awarded additional funding or discretionary authority to do so.

Even under State-led PA, FEMA must retain certain responsibilities, including obligating funds, determining final recovery project eligibility, adjudicating appeals, and ensuring compliance with all applicable federal regulations. States may lead the recovery efforts, but FEMA must still review and approve all projects.

Without extra financial support or final decision-making authority, states may be hard pressed to take on recovery legwork for the federal government. FEMA policy will evolve as it implements this Guide, so we hope that some of these concerns are addressed. But as it stands, State-led PA may only be worthwhile for the smallest, most straight-forward recoveries.

Hagerty Consulting is a proud ICMA Strategic Partner and participant in the 2019 ICMA Regional Conferences. Read the original article here.

Hagerty Consulting is an emergency management consulting firm that helps clients prepare for and recover from disasters. Established in 2001, Hagerty’s work includes some of the nation’s largest recovery and preparedness projects in more than 30 states, including 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, and Hurricane Sandy.