History
PNWER’s Disaster Resilience and Homeland Security Program has a long legacy of activities with states, municipalities, and other regions to secure interdependent infrastructures and develop disaster resilience. The first initiative to address regional infrastructure security issues was the creation of The Partnership for Regional Infrastructure Security in November, 2001. The Partnership brought key private stakeholders representing the critical infrastructures across the states and provinces in the PNWER region together with officials responsible for emergency management and public safety. These stakeholders, along with elected officials from each state and province, identified opportunities for acting proactively to strengthen their infrastructures. This meeting led to the first Blue Cascades Exercise that focused on infrastructure interdependencies and cascading failures from a terrorist attack on the regional energy sector.
Since then, PNWER, with regional stakeholders, has organized five critical infrastructure interdependencies: Blue Cascades exercises focusing on infrastructure-related challenges associated respectively, with physical attacks and disruptions (2002); cyber threats, disruptions, and impacts (2004); a major subduction zone earthquake (2005); pandemic preparedness (2007), supply chain resilience (2008); and public-health and safety impacts of major flooding (2010). These exercises have led to the development of a regional action plan to address the major gaps discovered. Many of the recommendations have been fulfilled and other recommended projects are currently underway.
As a result of the regional action plan, PNWER has undertaken pilot projects with Department of Homeland Security, Department of Defense, the Department of Energy, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and other federal entities. One major project was the development of a regional alert and warning system (NW WARN), to encourage cross sector information sharing. Currently, over 2200 vetted users participate in NWWARN and routinely use the system. The Washington State Fusion Center also uses NWWARN as the primary means of communication with state critical infrastructure providers.
Other projects include a regional energy vulnerability assessment, and an interdependencies identification tool for stakeholder use. PNWER also initiated a pilot project focusing on regional resilience and dams and levees (Columbia River Basin Risk Management and Mitigation Project) with DHS and facilitated the development of a regional information fusion center that incorporates the private sector and other key stakeholders in a WA state-wide integrated capability. PNWER has also completed the development and execution of a tabletop exercise focused on a catastrophic failure of the SR 520 bridge for the Washington State Department of Transportation and is working with stakeholders to develop a regional Action Plan based on lessons learned from the exercise. PNWER has facilitated several Interdependencies workshops in the Puget Sound Region as well as in Montana and Oregon. These workshops are the foundation to developing a cross sector infrastructure interdependencies exercise program and have helped build trust between public and private infrastructure stakeholders.
PNWER initiated the coordination of regional Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) Managers from the states and provinces as well as federal partners to share information and best practices on a regular basis. This coordination has led to many states and provinces sharing CIP plans and training and exercise opportunities and has helped build regional trust.