New CISA Division of Homeland Security Enhances Resiliency
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) was recently formed by the Dept. of Homeland Security (DHS) to help protect America’s critical infrastructure from physical and virtual threats. To state the obvious, this is GREAT news for utility emergency preparedness!
What is the CISA?
The CISA is focused on bringing together a broad swath of government agencies, utility companies, and other private-sector organizations to help promote improved cybersecurity, infrastructure resilience, emergency communications, and emergency planning.
One way the CISA accomplishes these ambitious goals is by conducting assessments on infrastructure (water, sewer, electric, gas, telecom, cable, financial systems, etc.) and communities in order to determine the best use of resources and investment dollars. It also provides emergency training on events like terrorism, active shooters, bombing events, and HAZMAT incidents.
The CISA also hosts forums, seminars, and brainstorming sessions from time to time. For example, it recently held the Infrastructure Security & Resilience Forum at Southern California Edison’s Energy Education Center, which brought together decision-makers from a wide variety of industries to improve their emergency policies and protocols, and to promote a more unified and holistic response to natural or man made disasters.
Importance for Utility Emergency Preparedness
Obviously, the DHS decision to create the CISA is a boon to utility emergency preparedness. Why? Because the greater the degree to which all community entities and stakeholders are aligned during emergency response, the more effective and efficient the recovery will be.
I have personally seen many instances where key players were not on the same page post-emergency, and in every case, recovery efforts suffered greatly. The notion of proactively bringing diverse players together to align expectations, roles, responsibilities and processes is something that is long overdue. As the saying goes, “it takes a village.” Thankfully, with the help of the CISA, community villages can be created and nurtured for everyone’s benefit.
