Home

Recognition

July 2016 - The Pacific Northwest Economic Region was recognized as a model for building a more resilient region in the new DHS National Protection Framework

The Pacific NorthWest Economic Region (PNWER) launched the Regional Disaster Resilience and Homeland Security Program in November 2001 with the goal of improving the Pacific Northwest's ability to withstand and recover and to protect its critical infrastructures from all-hazards disasters. Based in Seattle, Washington, PNWER is a statutory, non-profit public/private organization that was formed in 1991 by legislatures of the northwest states of Alaska, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Canadian provinces and territories of Alberta, British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Yukon & Northwest Territories.

See our most recent updates on CRDR in the PNWER Annual Report here.

Recent Publications

Opinion: Twenty years after Y2K, preparing for the next major disaster takes a backseat
Jan 9, 2020, Puget Sound Business Journal
"It has been 20 years since the world was scrambling to get their computers and software ready for the year 2000. For some businesses and governments, it had taken a two-year push to find and fix vulnerabilities in their systems and then also demand a similar effort from all their vendors that touched their supply system or other interfaces..." To read more, click here.

Current Projects

Post-Disaster Damage Assessment by Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Project

The Pacific Northwest Economic Region (PNWER) and its Center for Regional Disaster Resilience (CRDR) in partnership with Northeastern University’s Global Resilience Institute (GRI) have been awarded a 2017 National Infrastructure Protection Plan (NIPP) Security and Resilience Challenge grant for critical infrastructure. The project seeks to develop technologies for UAS (drone) employment to inspect critical infrastructure in post disaster scenarios.

More information here

Using Drones for Synchronization of Situational Awareness Between Critical Infrastructures and the Public Sector Project

The 2019 Resilience Challenge Grant project seeks to develop methodologies to allow for the rapid inspection of critical infrastructure in post-disasters using drones (also called Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS)). This information can then be shared with state level emergency management agencies to establish better situational awareness and a common operating picture.

More information here

Cybersecurity Situational Awareness Project
The Pacific Northwest Economic Region (PNWER) and its Center for Regional Disaster Resilience (CRDR) have been awarded a 2017 National Infrastructure Protection Plan (NIPP) Security and Resilience Challenge grant for the Maritime Transportation System Cyber Resilience Category. The primary objective of this project is to establish a maritime industry information sharing and analysis process and to work with existing regulatory and standards organizations to create a robust cyber resource and information sharing community.

Find out more information here.

Stakeholder Survey and Self Asseessment
A survey has been designed to help us develop a baseline of current best practices and investments in cyber-security by maritime related organizations in the Puget Sound Region. The Full survey is available in the link below.

Take the stakeholder survey here.