Upcoming Events
Puget Sound First-to-See Social Media Demonstration
9:00 am May 21, 2013
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Oregon Tsunami Preparedness
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The deadly Tsunami that followed the Japan earthquake was just another reminder that our coasts, while beautiful, present an unique challenge in the aftermath of an earthquake -- whether local or across the ocean. To protect the citizens of the Coast, Oregon has made a significant investment in Tsunami preparedness. Read more about their Tsunami plans and initiative at http://www.oregon.gov/OMD/OEM/Pages/plans_train/tsunamis.aspx |
About the Center
The Pacific NorthWest Economic Region (PNWER) launched the Regional Disaster Resilience and Homeland Security Program in November, 2001 with the goal of improving the Pacific Northwest's ability to withstand and recover and to protect its critical infrastructures from all-hazards disasters. Based in Seattle, Washington, PNWER is a statutory, non-profit public/private organization that was formed in 1991 by legislatures of the northwest states of Alaska, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Canadian provinces and territories of Alberta, British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Yukon & Northwest Territories. For more information please visit www.pnwer.org
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Announcements
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The beginning of 2013 has been a busy and exciting time for the Center for Regional Disaster Resilience. We are launching an innovative new social media tool and beginning an initiative focused on building a more resilient regional supply chain. We are also excited to announce a new addition to our leadership team. We are pleased to introduce Eric Holdeman as our new Center for Regional Disaster Resilience director.  | |
Eric Holdeman, Director, Center for Regional Disaster Resilience
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Eric brings with him a wealth of experience in the field of emergency management, homeland security and regional programs. His emergency management career spans 25 years with experience working at the federal, state and local levels of government., including work as the Director of Security for the Port of Tacoma and as the Emergency Management Director for King County, Washington. He is a contributing writer for Emergency Management Magazine where he writes feature articles and also has a regular column, "Eric's Corner," which is the nation's most popular blog on the topic of emergency management at disaster-zone.com We know Eric will continue to build upon a long legacy of working with states, provinces, territories, and the private sector to develop regional public-private partnerships, develop action plans, and undertake projects and activities to further the resilience of the region. To contact Eric, you may reach him at eric.holdeman@pnwer.org or 206-443-7723
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Social Media Project Update
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For the past year the Center for Regional Disaster Resilience has partnered with Pierce County, Washington and a broad stakeholder advisory group made up of ports, law enforcement and emergency management to develop a new system for reporting incidents and using social media feeds to provide real-time information during a disaster.
The system is comprised of two main features. The FirstToSee smart phone app will allow stakeholders to submit reports using their smart phone or tablet. This exciting app will empower the public and trusted users to provide situational awareness through photos and written descriptions directly with the Cost Guard, emergency management, and local government. The second component of the system will aggregate RSS and social media feeds, including twitter and sort and geographically display the information on a map. The social media aggregation tool and smart phone app are coordinated through a web based GIS interface designed to run in emergency operations centers or other related capacities. The mobile app will be available in the Android and Apple app stores in early summer and the Center will be holding exercises with local emergency management to test the system in May.
For more information on becoming a part of this project, please contact Megan Levy at megan.levy@pnwer.org
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Announcing the release of the final report from the US-Canada Maritime Commerce Resilience Initiative
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US-Canada Stakeholders at the Action Planning Meeting in Vancouver, BC.
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In 2011, President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced The Beyond the Border declaration to ensure that the vital economic partnership that joins our two countries continues to be the cornerstone of our economic competitiveness and security as we jointly face the challenges of the 21st century.
To help fulfill this goal and increase our regional bi-national maritime economic resilience PNWER, in conjunction with Transport Canada and the US Coast Guard, conducted a maritime initiative as a part of the U.S.-Canada Beyond the Border Action Plan, Part IV: Critical Infrastructure and Cyber Security - Rapidly Respond to and Recover from Disasters and Emergencies on Either Side of the Border.
The project kicked off in early 2012 with two workshops in the Vancouver, BC area to begin to develop specific cross border maritime guidelines for communication and information sharing. The result of these early meetings was the development of an initial draft of "Guidelines for Communication and Information-sharing between Stakeholders in Canada and the United States to Enhance Maritime Commerce Recovery after an Emergency or Disaster."
Several cross border workshops and a tabletop exercise were conducted to continue to develop protocols, followed by a joint US-Canada action planning meeting to finalize the path forward.
In the next few months, this project will move to the Great Lakes and Atlantic regions. These regions will take what we have developed and further develop products to meet their own unique needs. We look forward to working to implement the action plan in our region in the coming months.
For more information, please contact Joe Larsen at joe.larsen@pnwer.org.
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Supply Chain Resilience Project
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 The Center for Regional Disaster Resilience is working with key private sector organizations and the Puget Sound Regional Catastrophic Planning Team (RCPT) to implement a series of stakeholder identified strategies to improve regional supply chain resilience. The goal of the project is to develop a supply chain resilience working group made up of public/private stakeholders to provide input and advise the region on issues related to supply chain resilience. Through this process, the working group will develop a mutual aid memorandum of understanding for Puget Sound ports to share resources during a catastrophic event; develop a regional strategy for supplying Community Points of Distribution for needed post-disaster government provided commodities; and create a strategy for coordinating government led recovery efforts with the private sector to more rapidly restore commerce and the economy. The strategies will enhance the RCPT regional transportation recovery plan and improve disaster resilience of the supply chain infrastructure, while ensuring public and private sector supply chain professionals have an ongoing forum to continue to advise the Puget Sound region and State of Washington on recovery transportation priorities impacting the regional economy.
For more information, please contact Steve Myers at steve.myers@pnwer.org
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Puget Sound Regional Maritime Transportation Disaster Recovery Exercise Program
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 The Puget Sound Regional Maritime Transportation Disaster Recovery Exercise Program began in March and will enable the members Puget Sound maritime transportation community to advance their capabilities to reinstate their respective operations quickly after an emergency or disaster. The program will involve the Ports of Tacoma, Seattle, Everett, and Olympia, and is focused on the following key elements: 1) Engaging a diverse and sustainable community of interest for maritime transportation disaster recovery in the Puget Sound region, building from exercise design teams comprised of public and private stakeholders from and around each of the four participating ports;
2) Examining the regional financial and economic impacts of the exercise scenarios, as well as the decisions made and actions to be taken by exercise participants as they direct recovery efforts; and 3) Presenting the recovery efforts and associated economic impact through a common visual simulation to provide a common operating picture across all participating stakeholders. For more information on this project, please contact Joe Larsen at joe.larsen@pnwer.org
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