emergencyprep

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Best Practices for High Impact Threats to Critical Infrastructure: Conference Proceedings of the InfraGard National EMP SIG Sessions at the 2016 Dupont Summit

Edited by Charles L. Manto and Stephanie A. Lokmer

Purchase through Amazon 

Best Practices for High Impact Threats to Critical Infrastructure provides transcripts of the 2016 InfraGard National EMP SIG ™ (EMP SIG)™ sessions at the Dupont Summit and additional materials from the subsequent months. The conference also reviewed nationwide activities of the EMP SIG including the release of Powering Through. It is a planning guide for communities, companies, and government agencies to help prepare for and mitigate widespread prolonged infrastructure collapse.

The conference segments also reflect the work of EMP SIG members at the National Guard Bureau, the Society for Disaster Medicine and Public Health and the INCOSE Critical Infrastructure Protection and Recovery Working Group that provided key articles reprinted from the December 2016 INCOSE Journal Insight. The EMP Commission’s final letter to Congress and a Resilient Hospitals Handbook are also included.

InfraGard EMP SIG Publications:
Beginning December 2015, the EMP SIG developed a planning guide named Powering Through for organizations to use to enhance their own continuity of operations and disaster plans in light of the new National Space Weather Strategy and manmade EMP and cyber threats. Work is planned for 2016 for an expanded second edition. Copies can be ordered at: https://www.empcenter.org/publications/planning-guide/ This complements the Triple Threat Power Grid Exercise also published by Westphalia Press and Amazon.

Information on these planning materials and upcoming activities can also be acquired by contacting the EMP SIG at igempsig@infragardmembers.org. To join InfraGard and the EMP SIG, apply on the home page of InfraGard.org.

About the InfraGard National EMP SIG: The InfraGard National EMP SIG™ was formed in July 2011 for the purpose of sharing information about catastrophic threats to our nation’s critical infrastructure. The ultimate goal of the EMP SIG is to assist local communities to enhance their own resilience with a special emphasis on developing protected local infrastructure ranging from local power generation and energy storage to water and food production.

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Resilient Hospitals Handbook: Strengthening Healthcare and Public Health Resilience in Advance of a Prolonged and Widespread Power Outage

by Charles “Chuck” Manto, Earl Motzer PhD, James Terbush MD

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A number of high-impact threats to critical infrastructure can result in a regional or nationwide months-long power outage, making it unlikely for timely outside help to arrive. Hospitals are encouraged to gain the capacity to make and store enough power on-site to operate in island mode indefinitely without outside sources of power or fuel and protect on-site capabilities from threats that could impact regional commercial power systems. This handbook outlines challenges and opportunities to solve these problems so hospitals, healthcare facilities, and other resources might become more resilient. From the Second Goal of the 2015 National Space Weather Strategy: http://www.dhs.gov/national-space-weather-strategy
• “Complete an all-hazards power outage response and recovery plan: —for extreme space weather event and the long-term loss of electric power and cascading effects on other critical infrastructure sectors.
• Other low-frequency, high-impact events are also capable of causing long-term power outages on a regional or national scale.
• The plan must include the Whole Community.”

From the US Defense Threat Reduction Agency
https://www.sbir.gov/sbirsearch/detail/736859
• “An electromagnetic (EM) attack (nuclear electromagnetic pulse [EMP] or non-nuclear EMP [e.g., high-power microwave, HPM]) has the potential to degrade or shut down portions of the electric power grid important to DoD.
• Restoring the commercial grid from the still functioning regions may not be possible or could take weeks or months. Significant elements of the DCI require uninterrupted power for prolonged periods to perform time-critical missions (e.g., sites hardened to MIL-STD-188-125-1).
• To ensure these continued operations, DCI sites must be able to function as a microgrid that can operate in both grid-connected and intentional island-mode (grid-isolated).

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Engaging Communities for High-Impact Threats to Critical Infrastructure: Dupont Summit 2015 Conference Proceedings of the InfraGard National EMP SIG Sessions

Edited by Chuck L. Manto and Stephanie A. Lokmer

Purchase through Amazon 

Engaging Communities for High Impact Threats to Critical Infrastructure provides transcripts of the 2015 InfraGard National EMP SIG™ (EMP SIG)™ sessions at the Dupont Summit and additional materials from the subsequent months. This includes reports from the federal government on the new National Space Weather Strategy, DoD’s pronouncement of inadequately protected power grids needed by military bases resulting in the need for EMP-protected microgrids, and the EMP SIG sessions at the Space Weather Workshop of NOAA on April 27, 2016.
 
InfraGard EMP SIG Publications 
Beginning December 2015, the EMP SIG developed a planning guide named Powering Through for organizations to use to enhance their own continuity of operations and disaster plans in light of the new National Space Weather Strategy and manmade EMP and cyber threats. Work is planned for 2016 for an expanded second edition. Copies can be ordered at:
https://www.empcenter.org/publications/planning-guide/

This complements the Triple Threat Power Grid Exercise also published by Westphalia Press and Amazon in the prior year.

Information on these planning materials and upcoming activities can also be acquired by contacting the EMP SIG at igempsig@infragardmembers.org. To join InfraGard and the EMP SIG, begin the application procedure on the home page of InfraGard.org.

 
About the InfraGard National EMP SIG 
The InfraGard National EMP SIG™ was formed in July 2011 for the purpose of sharing information about catastrophic threats to our nation’s critical infrastructure. The ultimate goal of the EMP SIG is to assist local communities to enhance their own resilience with a special emphasis on developing protected local infrastructure ranging from local power generation and energy storage to water and food production.

On October 3-6, 2011, the EMP SIG cohosted workshops and exercises at the National Defense University at Ft. McNair in Washington, D.C. and the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, MD examining scenarios of national level power grid failures due to extreme space weather. Since then, the EMP SIG led sessions at the Policy Studies Organization’s annual Dupont Summit on the first Friday of December. Infrastructure professionals may join InfraGard at InfraGard.org.