Windstorm anniversary highlights interdependencies
Past disasters show need for cooperative infrastructure planning
King County, WA – On the one-year anniversary of one of the most severe windstorms to ever hit the region, infrastructure officials from across the Northwest and Canada are meeting to plan for the protection and continuity of the region’s critical infrastructure. The Third Annual Regional Critical Infrastructure Interdependencies Seminar is being held today and tomorrow at Microsoft’s Redmond campus and will focus on transportation, supply chain and freight resiliency; developing regional information sharing analysis capability; pandemic and biologic event resilience and dam and levee resiliency. Tomorrow’s keynote address by representatives from local utility companies will highlight “lessons learned” from last year’s windstorm.
“As we saw in the December 2006 Windstorm, and even recently with the effects to supply chains due to the flooding and closure of I-5, impacts to one piece of our infrastructure can quickly spread to others,” said Jeff Bowers, Acting Director of the King County Office of Emergency Management. “Opportunities such as today’s seminar are critical to facilitating cooperative planning between infrastructure managers and emergency managers.”
With 85% of the infrastructure of the region under ownership of the private sector, this seminar is a key piece of the public-private partnership which is needed to protect infrastructure from natural and man-made disasters. Over 275 public and private sector infrastructure managers and officials responsible for business continuity from Washington, Oregon, Idaho, British Columbia, Alberta and Montana are participating.
"One of the lessons learned is how important it is for local, county and state governments to work with the private sector to anticipate and respond to such events," said Matt Morrison, Executive Director of the Pacific NorthWest Economic Region. "Our goal is to be a fully disaster resilient region. Expanding the conversation to include private sector stakeholders and neighboring jurisdictions will serve us well in the future."
Organized by the Pacific NorthWest Economic Region’s Center for Disaster Resilience, the two-day seminar is sponsored by King County; Microsoft; Safeway; Work Safe Technologies; PEMCO; and the Infrastructure Security Partnership.
Friday’s Keynote Address Information: Mary Robinson, Operations Continuity, Puget Sound Energy and Roger Serra, Director of Security and Emergency Management, Seattle City Light. 8:30 a.m. -9:30 a.m., Microsoft Campus; 16070 NE 36th Way, Building #33, Redmond, WA 98052.
Public sector representatives include: King County Office of Emergency Management; US Department of Homeland Security, Washington Department of Health, Washington Department of Transportation, City of Seattle; Port of Seattle, City of Everett, Whatcom County Sheriff’s Department, Pierce County Emergency Management; State Critical Infrastructure Protection Managers from Alaska, Alberta, British Columbia, Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington.
Private sector representatives include: Microsoft; Washington Mutual; Puget Sound Energy; BNSF Railway Company, APM Terminals, Safeway, Boeing; Nike, Starbucks, PEMCO, AT&T, Sprint/Nextel, Bank of America, BP; Safeco, T-Mobile.