Utility Preparedness

Water and wastewater utility managers will find expert guidance on all issues regarding security and emergency preparedness and response in this book. The terrorist attacks on the US of Sept. 11, 2001, as well as destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, brought heightened concern over the security and emergency preparedness of America's water supply infrastructure--concerns which remain high to this day.

An increase in major natural disasters—and the growing number of damaging events involving gas, electric, water, and other utilities—has led to heightened concerns about utility operations and public safety. Due to today's complex, compliance-based environment, utility managers and planners often find it difficult to plan for the action needed to help ensure organization-wide resilience and meet consumer expectations during these incidents. Emergency Planning Guide for Utilities, Second Edition offers a working guide that presents new and field-tested approaches to plan development, training, exercising, and emergency program management. The book will help utility planners, trainers, and responders—as well as their vendors and suppliers—to more effectively prepare for damaging events and improve the level of the utility’s resilience. It also focuses on planning needed in the National Incident Management System and ICS environment that many utilities are embracing going forward. In doing so, utilities will be able to improve the customer experience while reducing the impact that damaging events have on the utility’s infrastructure, people, and resources.

This manual presents principles, practices, and guidelines which deal with natural disasters, accidents, or intentional acts that have the potential to disrupt water services. Discussions include applications of knowledge and experience about specific systems, determination of vulnerable components of the system, and offers of strategies for improvement of the deficiencies, including alternate policies.

Emergency Preparedness: A Safety Planning Guide for People, Property, and Business Continuity provides step-by-step instructions for developing prevention and response plans for all types of emergencies and disasters. It helps the reader to create an organization-wide emergency management plan that ensures that all procedures are in place and all equipment and personnel needs are addressed so that your company can respond to an emergency situation quickly and instinctively. You will feel confident that your employees are trained and prepared to put your company's plan into action and protect all workers, property, and the life of the company in the face of any natural or non-natural event.

Accompanying CD-ROM contains additional supporting materials, sample electronic slide presentations, and other resources.