FEMA recently published a Recovery Advisory report “Reducing ‘Loss of Utility’ Impacts to Critical Facilities,” to provide considerations and guidance to emergency managers as well as critical infrastructure owners and operators to help reduce operational impacts to infrastructure during emergencies, focusing specifically on supporting critical facilities during disasters.

The Recovery Advisory report outlines observations from Hurricane Ian in Florida last year. Hurricane Ian, according to the advisory, “caused widespread damage across Southwest Florida … [it] resulted in widespread outages of utilities, including, but not limited to, power, water, and wastewater. The loss of utility service, and in some cases standby generators, severely impacted the ability of critical facilities to operate as intended.” Critical facilities are defined by FEMA as buildings that are essential for the delivery of vital services or protection of a community. Utilites can help support critical facilities continued operations during emergency contingencies by ensuring they have a Continuity of Operations Plan, or COOP. A COOP is a planning tool for organizations to ensure continuity of critical functions during a wide range of emergencies. FEMA offers a template for use in developing a COOP. This template helps agencies to define their critical functions, analyze vulnerabilities, plan for emergencies, and maintain and update the COOP based on lessons learned. The template for that can be accessed here. Lastly, the report provides additional resources to help stakeholders with emergency planning. Read the full recovery advisory at FEMA here.