This article provides transportation supply chain resiliency considerations as an expansion to Supply Chain Resilience: An Urgent Priority which highlights overall supply chain disruption challenges and includes mitigation and resilience strategies.

The ability to transport goods and resources effectively represents a critical link within the global the supply chain. Nearly all goods and resources, whether farm-to-table or shipped worldwide, rely on an often complex transportation network to reach the consumer. The supply chain comprises a network of people, processes, and technology necessary to produce and distribute commodities globally. The last several years have shown an ever-growing demand on supply chains from consumers and retailers accompanied by unpredictable transportation challenges. As a result, the global supply chain continues to suffer, inflicting cascading obstacles throughout the rest of society. 

Though many factors contribute to these supply chain trends that are seen globally, the magnitude of reliance on the transportation sector across all industries has the ability to combat these issues systematically. Stakeholders can best posture their communities for success by proactively identifying transportation threats and properly communicating how best to utilize their transportation capabilities to create resilient and capable supply chains. 

Threats and Potential Impacts

Stakeholders and the public are increasingly recognizing supply chain delays and shortages as an area of concern. These shortcomings result in consumer inconvenience, inflation, and are increasingly responsible for public health and safety concerns, as we have recently seen with pediatric medication and formula shortages.

 The pandemic has irrevocably impacted the supply chain and changed consumer habits. This can be seen with the exponential growth of the e-commerce industry, which requires last-mile delivery and substantial transportation infrastructure to provide goods directly to consumers. Additionally, it has created an increasing focus on the domestic production of critical resources and diversification of how goods are routed into ports around the nation. Moreover, as the impacts of COVID-19 continue to loom in the background, transportation challenges continue to emerge, such as the recently avoided rail strike, further adding strain and pressure to the supply chain. 

Societal impacts have been exacerbated by ongoing labor shortages across the transit workforce, fluctuating oil prices, and infrastructure limitations that further restrict the effective and efficient transportation of goods across the nation. Additionally, malicious actors, including cyber attacks, pose a significant threat to increasingly automated and technology reliant supply chains. Not only is customer data privacy at risk, but attacks can also cause physical damage to cargo or transportation equipment and disrupt significant routes for prolonged periods.

Collectively, these emerging supply chain challenges are among many to offer context that stakeholders may consider when addressing future impacts on already strained systems. 

Transportation Supply Chain Indicators 

 It is important for emergency managers to recognize the critical linkage that transportation has within the current supply chain issues. With this awareness, it is possible to identify the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that can then be used to anticipate transportation-related supply chain issues in order to mitigate their frequency and severity. As emergency managers, jurisdictions, and agencies understand the patterns of the KPIs, they can subsequently leverage this to prepare and develop resiliency throughout future shipments, deliveries, and distributions. 

Transportation Labor Capacity 

Monitoring employment trends across the transportation modalities (i.e., rail, maritime, road, and air) helps jurisdictions and agencies determine how the delayed supply chain will affect them and consider alternative transit modes. Fewer transit workers lead to delayed delivery times, which is a direct cause of inflation and insufficiency as supply cannot meet the demand. 

Freight Movement

The rate at which imported containers move inland from ports also helps jurisdictions and agencies project how much staffing they need, how to prepare their modes of transportation, and what to communicate to their consumers. Identifying current capacity is critical for preparing for future capabilities and needs. 

Delivery Routes 

Understanding all possible transportation routes and modes for goods and resources can aid jurisdictions and agencies in identifying optimization routes. These routes avoid highly populated areas and damaged infrastructure, encouraging timely and safe deliveries. 

Jurisdictions must recognize that Logistic Supply Chains and Distribution Plans differ from location to location based on their demographic’s wants, needs, and goals. Supply chains may also vary due to available resources and particular nuances within a jurisdiction. Because of this, jurisdictions must understand that identifying the most appropriate KPIs for their unique circumstance is the most effective way to account for their needs and address the challenges they are seeing. 

Preparedness and Mitigation Strategies

Available at local, state, and federal levels are response and recovery resources for transit industries to use while combating transportation-related supply chain challenges. Some available funding resources are Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) and Promoting Resilient Operations for Transformative, Efficient, and Cost-Saving Transportation (PROTECT). These resources and others offer billions of dollars to communities all over the United States (US) to improve the resilience of transportation infrastructures.

 While jurisdictions can access many response and recovery resources to support the transit industry’s role in the supply chain, many emergency managers would suggest that the best way to improve resilience strategies in the transit sector is by enhancing preparedness and mitigation postures through:

Assessments 

Hazard Vulnerability Assessments, Critical Transportation Infrastructure Vulnerability Assessments, and traditional Risk Assessments are helpful tools to measure how supply chain disruption can affect organizations. These strengthen an organization’s resilience by measuring risks and potential impacts, assessing the economic costs of failing infrastructure, and identifying profitable investments. In addition, once assessments are complete, the organization can use the results to develop improvement road maps. 

 Continuity of Operation Planning 

Proactive response and recovery planning can be conducted by developing and implementing Continuity of Operation Plans (COOPs). COOPs organize policies and procedures that encourage the delivery of an organization’s essential functions during a disrupting event such as supply chain delays. A COOP can help a community withstand delayed shipments of highly critical goods and identify alternate transport strategies when developed and implemented appropriately. 

Seminars, Trainings, and Exercises 

Seminars, trainings, and exercises are great ways to learn and test the transportation capabilities of organizations and the community. Through these activities, organizations can identify existing and emerging gaps in their supply chain management policies and procedures and address them proactively. Seminars, trainings, and exercises also encourage engagement with regional partners to learn how to help one another during a supply chain disruption. Relationships formed during events such as a transportation-related supply chain exercise allow jurisdictions to evaluate existing plans of action during blue sky days while strengthening interpersonal relationships that can be leveraged during gray sky events.

Hagerty Can Help 

Hagerty has experience offering its transportation clients and their stakeholders a range of preparedness tools and services that help improve their overall mitigation and resiliency needs. From developing regional preparedness frameworks to conducting assessments, trainings, and exercises, Hagerty can help.

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Chris Faircloth is a Senior Managing Associate and the Preparedness Division’s Transportation Sector lead at Hagerty. With Hagerty, he primarily works with rail and maritime partners to build preparedness and response initiatives. Prior to joining Hagerty, he worked in emergency medicine overseeing local EMS operations and international health programs for austere environments, including the maritime and aviation industries.

Avery DeLong is a Hagerty Associate with a diverse range of experience working on projects within Hagerty that consist of transportation, energy, Complex Coordinated Terrorist Attack (CCTA), continuity, and cyber. Prior to joining Hagerty, she worked on building community resilience by identifying public health, healthcare, and other critical infrastructures that would be impacted during different types of disastrous events.

Earlier this summer, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, released the Fiscal Year 2022 (FY22) Notices of Funding Opportunities (NOFOs) for their Flood Mitigation Assistance (FMA) and Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) programs. To be successful in these competitive programs, projects must be deemed cost-effective by the Agency, yet achieving cost-effectiveness has often been easier said than done because of the FEMA Benefit Cost Analysis (BCA) tool’s use of the 1992 OMB Circular No. A-94 ‘s seemingly high 7 percent discount rate.

What is a BCA Discount Rate?

In calculating a project’s costs and benefits, discount rates are applied to translate potential future costs and benefits into present values. While this calculation is helpful for long-term planning considerations, using a high discount rate almost always reduces the future value of a project’s associated costs and benefits – often leading FEMA to select lower-cost, more straightforward projects that are relatively short-lived (e.g., ten years or less) and result in more immediate monetary and tangible benefits.

To realize BRIC and FMA’s expressed goals of bolstering community resilience nationwide, particularly in disadvantaged communities, many mitigation practitioners have been calling for FEMA to lower and/ or increase the flexibility surrounding the current BCA discount rate. Last Friday, FEMA released new guidance for an alternative cost-effectiveness methodology for this year’s BRIC and FMA programs – publicly recognizing the continued challenges communities face while trying to demonstrate the cost-effectiveness of their projects. This new, ‘people first’ approach is long overdue and will both increase the flexibility of and take a climate-informed approach to the BCA calculation process.

How Will This Change Work?

If a BCA using the 7 percent discount rate is deemed cost-ineffective, FEMA would consider the project cost-effective if the BCA generated at the 7 percent discount rate is equal to or greater than a Benefit Cost Ratio (BCR) of 0.75, rather than the traditional BCR of 1.0. Likewise, FEMA will consider the same project cost-effective if the BCR reaches 1.0 using a discount rate of 3 percent. By allowing flexibility with the discount rate, longer-term projects will likely benefit the most.

In order to utilize this approach, subapplicants/applicants must also demonstrate how the mitigation activity benefits a disadvantaged community; addresses climate change impacts; includes hard to quantify benefits; and/or is subject to higher costs due to the use of low carbon building materials or compliance with the Federal Flood Risk Management Standard. This justification will need to be included in the BRIC/FMA subapplication in the form of an Alternative Cost-Effectiveness Methodology Narrative.

Source: FEMA Memo – Alternative Cost-Effectiveness Methodology for Fiscal Year 2022 BRIC and FMA Application Cycle

What’s Next?

This change, for Fiscal Year (FY) 2022 BRIC and FMA, is not the first change the Agency has announced this year designed to increase flexibility with demonstrating the cost-effectiveness of a project. FEMA also released new pre-calculated benefits and waived the 0.75 threshold for the use of social (mental stress and anxiety/lost productivity) and ecosystem service benefits. These BCA related changes are assisting communities to overcome the challenges of proving a project’s cost-effectiveness – likely increasing the number of cost-effective BRIC and FMA projects this year and, hopefully, producing more projects that benefit disadvantaged communities.

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Amelia Muccio is the Director of Mitigation at Hagerty Consulting and a subject matter expert in disaster recovery. With over 15 years of experience in public health, disaster preparedness, mitigation, and financial recovery, Amelia has helped clients obtain $5 billion in federal funds after major disasters, including Hurricane Sandy and Harvey and the California Wildfires.

If time waits for no one, neither do hurricanes and other natural disasters. In the wake of Hurricane Fiona, The Washington Post highlighted the untimeliness of resiliency efforts for Puerto Rico. Essentially, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) allocated $3 billion for hazard mitigation projects after Hurricane Maria but only five percent of the available post-Hurricane Maria funds have been obligated. The article cited the cumbersome management of the funds at the federal and local level as a reason for slowing down the progress.

Sadly, the Washington Post reporting comes as no surprise to mitigation practitioners. The FEMA Hazard Mitigation Assistance (HMA) program post-subapplication/application submission process is fraught with delays and frustration. For a program that intends to provide funding to reduce the long-term risk to people and properties and break the cycle of repeated damage, the urgent need for these mitigation projects is overshadowed by an opaque federal review process, numerous Requests for Information (RFI), and subsequent subapplication/application revisions.

 Managing the Request for Information (RFI) Process

The purpose of the RFI is for the subapplicant to provide their state and FEMA additional information that may not have been included in the original subapplication/application. Typically, additional information is needed to further evaluate the proposed project’s eligibility, feasibility, cost-effectiveness, and environmental and historic preservation (EHP) impacts. The RFI is intended to be a tool that helps to expedite the data gathering process, but in its current use, it is an impediment that drastically slows down the grant award process.

Case in point, Puerto Rico. The initial Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP) Letters of Intent (LOIs) were due in the fall of 2019 – two years after Hurricane Maria; yet, over the last three years, these potential hazard mitigation projects have been asked repeatedly for additional information through the RFI process. This untimely process likely had real world impacts following Hurricane Fiona. It seems plausible that the Hurricane Maria backup power projects, if funded, could have lessened the impacts associated with the island-wide power outrage. Not to mention, the infrastructure projects—roads, electrical grid, and water supply systems—that are stuck in a bureaucratic black hole awaiting funding.

Ongoing RFIs are not just slowing down FEMA post-disaster hazard mitigation funding. The FEMA Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) pre-disaster mitigation program has identified for further review 75 competitive mitigation projects from Fiscal Year (FY) 2020 and FY 2021. As BRIC enters its third year with the opening of the FEMA GO portal on September 30, there is no information available to suggest these 75 projects have been issued grant awards. While BRIC can select $50 million high-impact infrastructure projects in disadvantaged communities, the process from FEMA selection, RFI, and grant award is significantly lagging. This lag time could mean that these projects are not in place to protect communities from the next disaster.

Streamlining the Review Process

One potential way to decrease the protracted review time is to tailor the RFIs to the subapplication/application type (project scoping versus project and phased versus shovel ready projects). Phased projects offer FEMA a strategy to conditionally approve a proposed project in which the first phase (Phase I) requires the subapplicant(s) to prepare technical and environmental reports and data including final site selection, design, engineering studies, permitting, and a refined Benefit-Cost Analysis (BCA). Phase I documentation must be reviewed and approved by FEMA before funding is awarded for the second phase (Phase II) construction and implementation. Since the studies performed by the subapplicant(s) in Phase I will result in a full eligibility, feasibility, cost-effectiveness, and EHP compliance review by FEMA, the initial review for phased projects should be expedited and not require years of RFIs. The goal of this approach should be to get mitigation grants awarded and allow communities to get started on the technical body of work needed to support the implementation of critical mitigation projects.

Investing More in Project Scoping Activities

Another option is to increase the HMGP, BRIC, and Flood Mitigation Assistance (FMA) project scoping funding. Substantial investments for future mitigation projects are needed now and many jurisdictions do not have the seed funding for the studies, plans, and designs. Applicants have $2 million this year for BRIC project scoping activities. This is an increase from the $600,000 in FY 2020, but the need is larger than the current opportunity.

The review timeline for project scoping subapplications—which involve no or minimal groundbreaking for technical studies—should be fast tracked. The subapplication/application must be eligible and comply with Hazard Mitigation Guidance, but a high-level screening, rather than a tedious year-long review, is more appropriate for this type of activity. The quicker the project scoping funds can be awarded; the quicker communities can begin the long-term recovery process. Delays to this funding will ripple through the mitigation program—resulting in less high-impact mitigation projects and less protection to communities that need it the most.

Conclusion

Mitigation practitioners need to be acutely aware that issuing RFIs while intended to be helpful can, and often do, result in harmful delays. The post-subapplication/application submission process needs to reexamine the lengthy review times, including the RFI process. Mitigation efforts are time sensitive and should be about protecting the people and communities behind the projects. At the end of the RFI process are real communities and associated impacts, like Salinas, Puerto Rico, that cannot wait another five years for mitigation funding.

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Amelia Muccio is the Director of Mitigation at Hagerty Consulting and a subject matter expert in disaster recovery. With over 15 years of experience in public health, disaster preparedness, mitigation, and financial recovery, Amelia has helped clients obtain $5 billion in federal funds after major disasters, including Hurricane Sandy, the California Wildfires, and Hurricane Harvey.

Vanessa Castillo is a Deputy Director of Mitigation at Hagerty Consulting and has extensive experience in the implementation of the FEMA mitigation programs. Before joining Hagerty, she was a Mitigation Specialist with the state of Colorado, where she contributed her expertise to the successful implementation of more than $65 million in the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP) for Colorado’s largest disaster.

On August 12, 2022, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) released the Fiscal Year (FY) 2022 Flood Mitigation Assistance (FMA) Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO). The most striking component is the significant and unprecedented investment in the Flood Mitigation Assistance (FMA) program – a 5 times greater investment than the previous year. FY 2021 offered eligible applicants and subapplicants $160 million for FMA funding. This year, FY 2022, offers $800 million in assistance to reduce or eliminate the risk of repetitive flood damaging to structures insured under the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). The boost in funding is made available to eligible applicants (States) and subapplicants (local governments) from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA).

FMA Funding Priorities

The $800 million dollar investment is divided among three strategic funding priorities.

Capability and Capacity Building (C&CB)

This $60 million assists eligible entities to plan and scope flood related mitigation interventions and improve the administration of the FMA program. C&CB activities can be the seed funding for future flood mitigation projects. According to FEMA, all subapplications under C&CB must demonstrate that the activity will reduce flood claims against the NFIP. More information on the C&CB scoring criteria is found on page 30 of the FMA NOFO.

Localized Flood Risk Reduction Projects

The second priority is localized flood risk reduction projects – previously known as community flood mitigation projects. These are the larger scale flood mitigation projects that seek to address community wide flood control issues. The funding for this priority was limited to $70 million last year, but with further investment at $340 million, it provides a greater opportunity for NFIP-insured communities to address stormwater management, floodplain restoration, and floodwater storage and diversion.

To be competitive for this FMA priority, applicants and subapplicants should address as many criteria as possible in the localized flood risk reduction project scoring criteria (page 32 of the FMA NOFO). Key scoring aspects include NFIP policy holder status, CDC Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) score, climate change/ future conditions, nature-based solutions, severe repetitive loss (SRL)/ repetitive loss (RL) properties, and a private partnership investment. The max project under this priority is $50 million (increased from $30 million).

Individual Flood Mitigation Projects

The last priority is individual flood mitigation projects. This $400 million priority utilizes a separate scoring criteria (page 36 of the FMA NOFO). This priority typically includes elevation and acquisition projects for NFIP properties in the Special Flood Hazard Area (SFHA). Key aspects to a competitive subapplication include substantial damage determinations, the CDC SVI score, SRL and RL properties, and implementation measures.

Equity and Climate Change

The FMA program is prioritizing assistance that benefits disadvantaged communities. The program utilizes the CDC SVI tool. Using the tool, a disadvantaged community (SVI score of not less than 0.6) will be prioritized in the scoring criterion for C&CB, localized flood, and individual flood projects. In addition, FMA prioritizes the enhancement of climate resilience and environmentally friendly construction practices. The scoring rubrics favorite activities that include nature-based solutions, climate adaptation, and future conditions.

Increasing Access, Investing in Our Future

The FMA program is an annual, competitive flood mitigation program that seeks to lessen the damage to NFIP properties with a focus on RL and SRL structures. Which applicants and subapplicants can be competitive for FMA largely depends on geography, as these properties are significantly higher in certain areas of the United States.

FEMA is challenged to consider if the dollars are truly reaching the most vulnerable communities and how the additional funding will ultimately reduce their risk. The highest priorities for FEMA should be streamlining and improving the program, continuing to add benefit for disadvantaged communities, as well as an enhanced focus on climate adaptive projects. If these priorities are truly addressed, FEMA may see a more equitable FMA program that flourishes in benefit of disadvantaged, flood-prone communities nationwide.

Total Number of SRL Properties by State (as of March 2019)

FMA Federal Share Awarded by State (2021)

With the unprecedented funding in FMA this year, an amount that actually surpassed all the subapplications received in 2021 (25 States submitted 194 subapplications requesting $534 million), we should be able to make a substantial impact in reducing the number of homes, businesses, and structures severely impacted by storms year after year – in hopes of one day, not having any RL or SRL properties in the country.

Amelia Muccio is the Director of Mitigation at Hagerty Consulting and a subject matter expert in disaster recovery. With over 15 years of experience in public health, disaster preparedness, mitigation, and financial recovery, Amelia has helped clients obtain $5 billion in federal funds after major disasters, including Hurricane Sandy, the California Wildfires, and Hurricane Harvey.

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On Friday, May 7th, a ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline’s corporate information technology (IT) networks disrupted fuel distribution across the eastern coast of the United States (US). Colonial’s pipeline system is over 5,500 miles long, running from Houston, Texas to New York Harbor, New York. The attack – cited as the most disruptive cyberattack on energy infrastructure in US history – and subsequent shut down caused 17 states – across four Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) regions – to declare states of emergency due to fuel shortages, most acutely within southeastern states. The pipeline has since resumed normal activities; however, this event highlighted both the challenges associated with responding to petroleum shortages and the importance of coordination across regions, states, and private sector entities before, during, and after shortage incidents.

Source: Colonial Pipeline Company

As referenced in our previous blog post on the attack, Colonial Pipeline worked with federal, state, and local agencies in a whole-of-government response to restore service as quickly as possible; however, fuel distribution networks do not follow the boundaries of established regions or states, and response actions taken in one state or region can impact neighboring jurisdictions. While each state likely has their own energy assurance plans, with provisions for petroleum shortage incidents that are informed by national-level guidance, the Colonial Pipeline incident reinforced the way in which impacts span jurisdictional boundaries.

Over the past few years, Hagerty has been working with the US Department of Energy (DOE), the National Emergency Management Association (NEMA), and the National Association of State Energy Officials (NASEO) on a series of projects with states across the country to account for the cascading effects of petroleum disruptions and to improve collective responses to petroleum shortages by building coordination across states, regions, and the private sector.

Hagerty, NEMA, and NASEO: Addressing the Call for Regional Coordination

Southeastern US Petroleum Shortage Planning Workshop

In 2017, NEMA and NASEO began an effort to address regional petroleum shortage coordination under a cooperative agreement with US DOE. Hagerty was added to the team to help plan and facilitate the February 2018 NEMA NASEO DOE Petroleum Shortage Response Planning Workshop in Atlanta. The workshop brought together representatives from 12 states, federal agencies, associations, and the oil and natural gas industry to define the current capacity and practices for petroleum shortage response. The workshop’s goal was to enhance regional petroleum shortage response coordination to bolster the overall energy resilience of the southeastern quadrant of the US. NASEO’s Guidance for States on Petroleum Shortage Response Planning served as the foundation for the workshop, giving participants the opportunity to not only become familiar with the guidance, but also provide feedback on additional guidance and data needs. During the workshop, participants identified areas for future planning and existing promising practices, including considerations for areas such as public information, external coordination, data and evaluation, regional coordination methods, and prioritization/allocation decision-making (see here for the workshop summary).

One key aspect from this and subsequent workshops is the criticality of public information during a petroleum shortage. What the media communicates to the public greatly influences how people will react to the incident. State energy offices and emergency management should be the primary drivers of the messages being released.

Western US Petroleum Shortage Workshop

After the success of the Southeast workshop, NEMA, NASEO, DOE, and Hagerty shifted their focus to the west coast, seeking to understand its state of readiness and potential foundations for regional petroleum shortage response coordination. Hagerty coordinated a workshop in 2019 that brought together representatives from 10 coastal and inland states in the western US, federal agencies, and industry to tackle the same challenges as their counterparts previously did in the southeast – seeking to facilitate the development of stronger, more coordinated petroleum shortage response plans. The workshop generated similar insights to those of the southeast, as well as a strong desire to begin enhancing regional coordination for petroleum shortages (see here for the workshop summary).

Western Petroleum Shortage Response Collaborative (WPSRC) Initiative

Given the high level of interest generated throughout the western states during the workshop in 2019, Hagerty is currently supporting DOE, NASEO, and NEMA in the formation of a Western Petroleum Shortage Response Collaborative (WPSRC). The Collaborative initiative is focused on facilitating the coordination and development of a regional petroleum shortage response framework among a subset of western states and building upon the lessons learned from the 2019 workshop.

The WPSRC is the first official working group in the western US comprised of key players with both energy and emergency management expertise. These leaders have the unique task of planning for regional catastrophic fuel shortages. WPSRC members have benefitted from deliberate examination, dissection, and cross-referencing of existing western state and regional response plans, concepts, and annexes, and will leverage peer expertise to improve respective state plans while working toward a regional framework. Upon project completion, WPSRC participants will have access to a new regional fuel response framework, insights for enhanced state emergency fuel plans, and a developed network collaborative of trusted, established partners that can be leveraged for future regional planning initiatives and during real-world events. NEMA, NASEO, DOE, and Hagerty will also use the framework as the basis for a template and guidance that they will make available to other regions in the US to facilitate similar collaborative efforts.

NEMA Petroleum Shortage Pilot Exercise

Findings from the petroleum shortage workshops identified the need to develop and test more robust state-level incident response plans for petroleum disruptions. As part of the WPSRC initiative, NEMA selected a member state for a pilot petroleum shortage exercise and Hagerty is currently working with this state to develop and execute a tabletop exercise that will assess participants’ response to a petroleum shortage. The scenario is based on an earthquake that disrupts the primary supply of petroleum, subsequent cyberattacks on petroleum terminals that limit the use of stored reserves and cyberattacks on IT systems the state emergency operations center (EOC) uses to coordinate operations.

While this exercise will help improve operational coordination within the state and with their private sector partners, the workshops and, most recently, the Colonial Pipeline incident have demonstrated the continued need for planning, training, and exercises that test plans and procedures for real-time, regional coordination across jurisdictions.

What’s Next?

As both natural and manmade threats to critical infrastructure continue to rise, so too will the need for regionally coordinated responses to incidents and disruptions; however, the energy sector is not the only critical infrastructure sector vulnerable to these hazards. Earlier this week, computer networks at JBS – the world’s largest meat supplier – were hacked, temporarily shutting down some operations in the US, Australia, and Canada.

In the wake of these recent, high-profile attacks on critical US infrastructure, state and local governments as well as private companies are acknowledging the need for increased security measures and enhanced regional coordination and are making progress to better understand their risks – this includes formalizing regional partnerships to protect against future shortages and lifeline disruptions. While establishing these partnerships is critical, it is just the beginning. State and local governments, and their private sector partners, will need to exercise their regional coordination plans, continue to expand their partnership networks, and train relevant staff on how to execute continuity of operations plans and procedures to ready themselves for potential future incidents to come.

Hagerty Can Help

Hagerty has the experience and expertise to support organizations in cybersecurity preparedness and infrastructure resilience efforts, as well as petroleum shortage planning, business continuity, and Continuity of Operations (COOP). We stand ready to help with your organization’s assessment, planning, training, and exercise needs to enhance cybersecurity and emergency response strategies. Contact us to learn more about our cybersecurity, energy sector, and COOP offerings and capabilities.

Rob Denaburg is a Senior Managing Associate in Hagerty’s Preparedness Division. Rob serves as a lead in Hagerty’s Critical Infrastructure Preparedness work, with a focus on energy. Rob has worked with public and private sector clients to minimize the societal, economic, and national security impacts of infrastructure outages and build resilience against severe natural and manmade hazards.

Ashley Wargo is a Senior Managing Associate in the Preparedness Division out of Hagerty’s Austin, TX office. Ashley serves as the firm’s lead for energy preparedness, working with clients at local, state, and national levels to enhance preparedness efforts through planning, training, exercise, and operations analysis. She works with clients to gather actionable information that can be used to formulate and prioritize improvement actions to enhance response efficiency and service delivery to municipalities and customers.

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