This is my first opportunity to update you on the activities of the Center for Regional Disaster Resilience (CRDR).  But first, I'd like to share some general thoughts with you. 

First of all, I have found that the association and focus of the CRDR is an extremely good fit with the mission, make-up and functions of the Pacific Northwest Economic Region (PNWER). Disasters don't respect our artificial governmental boundaries and the alignment of PNWER with Pacific Northwest states and provinces is a wonderful way to promote the cross-jurisdiction and cross-border coordination that is necessary if we are to become more disaster resilient.

While we work to become more disaster resilient, I also see social, economic and environmental issues at work that continue to point out the increasing interdependent nature of our 21st century world. No longer can governments and the private sector follow a path that is singularly focused on our individual interests. Our future common good requires us to understand our collective risks, establish working relationships and explore ways in which we can work in concert with one another before, during and after disasters. 

2013 Calgary floods

Then there is the continuing increase in risks that I see almost everywhere. Earlier this year there were flash floods in Calgary, Alberta and recently, in the United States the Colorado flooding that has been called a 500 year flood event by its governor.  Fires in California and other parts of the West have been record breaking.  And, we continue to experience multiple issues beyond bad weather that come from a warming planet.  It is time for us to take a more deliberate look at what measures we can take from an emergency management point of view to put forward adaptation strategies for climate change.  At this writing I don't know what they might be, so if you have some ideas please email me.  Climate adaptation is something we need to explore more.

PNWER Annual Summit-Resilience Session:

Disaster resilience session was one of the breakout sessions at the 2013 Annual PNWER Summit held in Anchorage, Alaska. At the session we covered three distinct topics.

Climate change is driving many new challenges across the board. One of them is the ability to have an increase in maritime shipping and oil exploration in the Artic. Nils Andreassen, Executive Director of the Institute of the North facilitated a roundtable session on Artic Oil Spill issues. The participating panel members included representatives from federal, state, local and private sector organizations. The remoteness of the Artic and logistical challenges for responding to oil spills was one of the issues highlighted during the session. There is limited local capacity and any significant response will take days not hours to orchestrate. It is assumed that risks of an oil spill will only continue to increase as there is more activity in the region due to the diminishing icepack. 

The use of social media to improve situational awareness during disasters was briefed to the attendees. One specific element discussed in more detail was the use of the www.FirstToSee.org system that is described in more detail below under ongoing activities. Social media is being used in all the larger disasters that we see occurring in North America. Volunteers are being recruited ad hoc by volunteer groups that already exist or those that just "spring up" following an event. We've see this type of activity following the most recent Colorado Floods. PNWER has also developed a terrific 19 page booklet "Social Media for Emergency Management" which defines some of the current social media terminology and also provides some descriptions of how social media has been used in recent disasters. If you would like copies of this booklet just contact our office. We can provide up to 25 copies per request. 

Oregon State Representative Deborah Boone provided an overview of the Oregon Disaster Resilience Plan that she was instrumental in initiating via legislation. This was a multi-year effort that came about due to a grassroots effort and being endorsed by the legislature. She shared how other states and provinces can benefit from the Oregon experience and dedicate time and effort to this type of planning process.

Ongoing CRDR Activities:

Snohomish County Post-Disaster Recovery Workshop Series 

After a disaster, how does business and government work together to recover? Understanding the recovery process and structure is the basis for the upcoming Snohomish County Post-Disaster Recovery Workshop Series. PNWER is partnering with Snohomish County Emergency Management and Everett Emergency Management to hold a series of workshops which will introduce participants to the FEMA structure for recovery, known as Recovery Support Functions (RSF). Participants will learn which RSF they fit into; integrate with RSF partners; and provide input on the development of a "playbook," which can be used as a guide for organizations post-disaster. Participants will include public, private, and non-profit organizations, community based groups, institutions, and any other organization that has an interest in or plays a role in the community's long term recovery from a disaster. The first of these workshops will be held November 20, 2013 in Everett, Washington. Please contact Megan Levy at megan.levy@pnwer.org for more information. 

Regional Maritime Disaster Recovery Exercises  

The CRDR is teaming with several other commercial companies being led by DYNAMIS to conduct a series of Maritime Disaster Recovery Exercises. Phase I which is completed focused on doing four individual port recovery exercises with the Ports of Olympia, Tacoma, Seattle and Everett. These tabletop exercises allowed individual ports to examine their business continuity readiness for human caused events. Each port was encouraged to include their external partners, both government and private sector, in the exercises. Phase 2 planning is just beginning and will include the above ports in a regional recovery exercises with an earthquake scenario. The goal is to find ways for the maritime sector to support one another and the recovery of the region as a whole when the road and rail transportation systems are totally disrupted. 

FirstToSee  

This is a revolutionary effort to develop a social media management system that both the public and private sectors can use to obtain better situational awareness before, during and after a disaster.  The team putting together FirstToSee included Pierce County, Washington IT Department doing the technical work and PNWER/CRDR working with a group of stakeholders to identify the key elements of the software to make it functional. The original funding to develop the system came from a Port Security Grant. Today we are in the process of implementing a "soft launch" of the software with a select group of agencies and up to three private sector companies. This process will take about six months. We are also looking at how the system can be sustained long-term and continue to evolve as technology continues to change. For more information go to the website at www.firsttosee.org and click on the Resource tab for some great videos that explain the power of social media and for how this new citizen app and background software interface.

City of Seattle Recovery Planning 

This is a brand new effort that the CRDR has undertaken in partnership with BERK Consulting.  BERK is the lead and we are teaming with them and K-Rise Enterprises to help the City of Seattle develop their Disaster Recovery Plan.  While disaster response planning can be pretty straightforward when it comes disaster recovery planning you can take different paths.  The City of Seattle wants to ensure that all stakeholders have a voice in the decision making process following a disaster as to how the city will recover.  Defining the process for how decisions will be made and who is involved in the decision making process are key elements of this planning effort.  From watching other catastrophic disasters in other parts of the world we know that following a disaster communities have the opportunity to rebuild and become more disaster resilient in the process.  The CRDR is pleased to be part of this community effort here in the city we call home.

Supply Chain Resiliency 

The Puget Sound Regional Catastrophic Planning Team (RCPT) has allocated funding for a Supply Chain Resilience Project.  The CRDR is the project lead and is working with other public and private stakeholders to take a multi-pronged approach to improving various aspects of our ability to regionally transport goods, support service delivery and rapidly recover and return businesses to a fully operating posture. 

The elements of this work include:

• Development of a Mutual Aid Agreement for Puget Sound ports for post-disaster mutual aid to assist the region and one another in expediting the disaster recovery efforts of the public and private sectors.
• Identifying best practices and a transportation strategy for community points of distribution and other means of supply and service delivery
• Assisting in the coordination between government and the private sector during disaster recovery.
• Identifying tools and pre-messages for sharing important information between jurisdictions and transportation stakeholders.

The Kick-off Meeting for this project was held on September 12th.  It was the general consensus of the people present that we should concentrate on accomplishing a few specific items that provide a meaningful difference in the region. A few of the items discussed were:

• Establishing a regional Crowd Map for public agencies to post their "public facing" information to in order to make it easier for individuals and businesses to understand regional impacts of a disaster and where services are being supplied or perhaps not available.
• Assisting with institutionalizing Washington's State's Pass System for businesses to be able to have access to their facilities to assess damages, etc.
• Better understanding the fuel distribution system in Western Washington to identify system capabilities and the resiliency that exists, along with "pinch points" where we need to understand our vulnerabilities and how we might address them as a region.

The PNWER Winter Meeting will also have a Resilience Session in it as part of the Economic Leadership Forum. The focus in that Friday morning session in Banff (Nov. 15) will be on learning from those and agencies that had to deal with the significant flood event experienced 

Banff, Alberta is the setting for PNWER's Economic Leadership Forum

in the Calgary metropolitan area earlier this year. While there was plenty of physical damages to property there is also the economic recovery and public health issues that can last long after the waters have receded. Those problems along with a comparison of how the disaster recovery systems are vastly different when you look at our two nations that share a common border, but vary greatly when it comes to governmental response and recovery mechanisms.