Yesterday, FEMA announced the release of the “Community Lifelines Implementation Toolkit 2.0,” which is a framework that emergency management community will use to track the status of sectors, such as the water and wastewater sector, during disasters. FEMA defines a Community Lifeline as one that “enables the continuous operation of critical business and government functions and is essential to human health and safety or economic security.” Accordingly, when these lifelines are disrupted, it behooves the emergency management community to prioritize their restoration to help stabilize the overall incident. Water and wastewater are included in the Food, Water, and Shelter lifeline. Other lifelines include Safety and Security, Health and Medical, Energy, Communications, Transportation, and Hazardous Materials. The recently released fourth edition of the National Response Framework (NRF), which was discussed in the October 31, 2019 Security and Resilience Update, formalizes the community lifelines construct in national level response doctrine.
Having an understanding of the Community Lifelines construct, and the inclusion of water and wastewater in it, may help utility operators impart to emergency managers, the public, and other community stakeholders the importance of drinking water and wastewater services and the need to prioritize their restoration when impacted, especially amidst competing demands for resources. Along with the toolkit, FEMA has also released an operational draft of the “Incident Stabilization Guide.” The guide provides further explanation of how FEMA will use the lifelines during response operations and planning and introduces its potential applicability across the preparedness cycle and other mission areas.
