What We've done

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Our activities and accomplishments over the past two decades have produced a wealth of information, action plans, guides, and other tools and resources, and influenced the inception, evolution, and dynamic growth of resilience as a national and global priority.  Examples of these include:

Regional Critical Infrastructure Security and Resilience (RCISR) InfoXchange Toolbox Initiative — we organized and led a multi-stakeholder initiative to develop and test a set of capabilities to enable organizational and regional risk management, cross-sector information sharing, and risk-based decision-making.  This project was selected by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security as one of 10 funded through the 2016 National Infrastructure Protection Plan (NIPP) Security and Resilience Challenge.

Assessing Extreme Weather-Related Vulnerability and Identifying Resilience Options for California's Interdependent Transportation Fuel Sector — we partnered with the University of California Berkeley’s Center for Catastrophic Risk Management on a state-wide assessment sponsored by the California Energy Commission to examine the vulnerability of the California Transportation Fuel Sector to extreme weather events.

Critical Workshop on Interdependent Lifelines Risk and Resilience:  South Napa Earthquake Lessons Learned for the “Big One” — we partnered for this regional event with local water systems, Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E), Verizon, the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), Napa City officials, and other local, state, and federal government agencies to examine outcomes from the South Napa Earthquake response and recovery and current and potential actions to understand regional risk and improve critical lifelines resilience.

Energy and Other Lifelines Interdependencies Tabletop Exercise and Action Plan:  Focus on Climate Change Extreme Events — we teamed with California's Alameda County, FEMA Region IX, PG&E, Verizon, and the county's cities and special districts to hold a tabletop exercise on recovery from major flooding impacting electric power and  interdependent infrastructures, and developed an action plan for incorporation into County emergency preparedness activities.

Regional Emergency Fuel Tabletop Exercise — we partnered with San Jose Water Company, which serves Silicon Valley and the South San Francisco Bay Area, to hold an emergency fuel distribution exercise with oil companies, regional stakeholders, state agencies and the California National Guard.

Regional Recovery and Restoration Initiative — with the Association of Bay Area Governments and the Bay Area Council, we developed and conducted three regional recovery workshops focusing on:  temporary housing, community issues, and business recovery; lifelines interdependencies; and healthcare, mass transit, and ports and airports.

Secure and Resilient Smart Cities and Mega-Regions Initiative — we currently are exploring existing and new capabilities to address all-hazards risks posed by technological, climate, and societal changes to advancing smart technologies and systems.  

Regional Cyber Resilience Initiatives — we conducted in partnership with the U.S. DHS, U.S. Department of Defense, and regional stakeholders several workshops and exercises to promote understanding of  cyber security and electromagnetic pulse (EMP) threats and develop regional response approaches in three metropolitan areas, New Orleans region, Puget Sound Region, and the San Francisco Bay Area.

National, State, and Local Energy Assurance Planning Initiative — we assisted the U.S. Department of Energy to plan and implement a nationwide State and Local Energy Assurance Planning Initiative.  This work included developing interdependencies workshops throughout the U.S. and producing a follow-on energy resilience strategy for states and localities.

National Community Health Resilience Initiative Guide and Toolset — for the U.S. DHS Office of Health Affairs, we recruited and facilitated a national stakeholder group of more than 100 practitioners and experts and provided expertise to develop a web-based system of guidance and other resources for security and resilience users.

Guide for Community Health Resilience Exercises to Improve Healthcare Preparedness — we produced the Guide for the California Department of Public Health Environmental Health Laboratory as part of its Hospital Preparedness Program mandated responsibilities.

Roundtable and Guidance on Improving Geriatric Resilience — we convened practitioners and experts to discuss all-hazards health resilience issues facing older adults, illuminate and examine priority issues, challenges and gaps and identify potential future remedial actions.  We incorporated findings from this and other related projects into  Contributing to Geriatric Health and Well-being Through Improving Community Resilience Capacities, which appears as a chapter in Disaster Preparedness for Seniors: A Comprehensive Guide for Healthcare Professionals (Springer, 2014).

Regional Community Health Resilience Forum — we brought together public health and healthcare, social, and human services practitioners and experts to share information on health threats and consequences and current projects, and to kick-off a regional health resilience initiative for the San Francisco Bay Area.

Community Health Resilience Exercise Series and Action-Planning Project — we assisted the California Department of Public Health in collaboration with health care organizations, government agencies, businesses, and non-profit service providers to hold a series of regional exercises on chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear hazmat threats and events, and produce a resilience improvement plan.

COVID-19 Lessons Learned for Pandemic Resilience — we currently are documenting findings and gaps associated with the pandemic for a compendium  that will be used to augment existing community resilience preparedness, response, and recovery plans.

Comprehensive Community Bio-Event Resilience Action Plan — we led a DHS-funded project with multiple public-private sector stakeholders in the Puget Sound Region of Washington State that developed a multi-jurisdiction preparedness and response action strategy based on findings from the H1N1 pandemic flu event.

Critical Infrastructure and Pandemic Preparedness Regional Tabletop Exercise — with King County in Washington State and the Pacific NorthWest Economic Region, we developed and conducted a regional exercise to examine impacts of a global pandemic on critical infrastructure and implications for pandemic resilience.

Regional Health Resilience Summit and Follow-on Workshops on Large-scale Hazardous Material Toxic Air Emission Preparedness and Response — for the California Department of Public Health Environmental Health Laboratory,  we organized and facilitated a series of scenario-based regional events to identify gaps and resilience improvements for mass casualty toxic air emission events.

Webinar Series on Health Effects of Wildfire Toxic Air Emissions — also for CDPH, we developed a webinar series to examine risks and short and long-term health effects from smoke and other toxic releases from burning vegetation, buildings, vehicles, and industrial facilities.

Creating Wildfire Resilient Communities — we examined climate change factors behind the global increase in large-scale wildfires, using California's 2017-2019 devastating wildfires as a case study to demonstrate these changes and how they contribute to gaps in wildfire research, policies, and capabilities.  The study describes a multi-jurisdiction, cross-sector and discipline strategy communities can use to lessen large-scale wildfire risk and improve resilience capacities. 

Roundtable on Climate Change Impacts to Energy Assets and Interdependent Infrastructures — we brought together federal, state, local, and private sector representatives to discuss coordination of flood mapping and assessment activities and a path forward to collaboratively address sea-level rise and coastal storm surge threats and risks to energy and other critical lifelines.

Regional Integrated Weather Resiliency Initiative & Roundtable — we held a roundtable for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) National Weather Service to bring together government entities, infrastructures, businesses, non-profits, community institutions, and academic and research organizations to increase awareness of risks from extreme weather hazards, and highlight technologies, tools, and policies to further resilience.

Risk Mitigation Workshop Series — we organized workshops across the U.S. with The Infrastructure Security Partnership (TISP), U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Association of Flood Plain Managers, and others to raise awareness of needed infrastructure upgrades.

Dams Sector Exercise Series 2009: Columbia River Basin — we led development and execution of the Dams Sector Exercise Series 2009 Regional Risk Assessment and Management Strategy for the Pacific NorthWest Economic Region (PNWER).  The project, sponsored jointly by the U.S. DHS and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, focused on the potential flood threat to the Columbia River Basin region of Washington State.

Dams Sector Exercise Series 2010: Green River Valley — we led the PNWER team development and execution of the Dams Sector Exercise Series 2010 infrastructure interdependencies workshop and after-action report addressing potential major flood risks to the Green River Valley in Washington State.  The project was sponsored by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as part of a risk assessment focusing on the Howard Hanson dam.

Roundtable on Sharing Earthquake Geotechnical and Related Damage Data for Improved Resiliency of Lifelines and Critical Infrastructure — we partnered with the CA Earthquake Clearinghouse to convene utilities and other essential service providers to discuss requirements and ways to improve sharing of data on earthquake impacts.

Regional Common Operating Picture (COP) Workshop and Development — we partnered with regional utilities, local governments, research institutions, and associations to explore requirements for developing an integrated, interoperable system for regional situational awareness in disasters.

Regional Security and Resilience initiative Development — at the request of federal, state, and local agencies and private sector organizations we identified and engaged “whole community” stakeholders to collaboratively identify needs, gaps, capabilities, and areas of improvement in the following regions and states:  southern and northern California, Iowa, Louisiana/New Orleans area, Montana, Washington State, the Chicago area, Maryland and the broader National Capital Region.

Bay Area Resilience Coalition — we identified and engaged more than 1,200 stakeholders across the greater San Francisco Bay Area to create a “network of networks” of individuals and organizations interested in collaborating to further regional resilience activities.

Building Resilient Regions into a Resilient and Secure Nation Initiative — we teamed with DomPrep Journal, government, and the private sector to conduct regional workshops and incorporate lessons learned into a national report on ways to improve regional resilience.

Superstorm Sandy Lessons Learned Workshop — we convened more than 200 stakeholders to examine impacts and gaps from Hurricane Sandy and implications for regional and broader state-wide resilience.

Golden Guardian Exercise Stakeholder Objectives Meeting — we partnered with the California Office of Emergency Services to engage public, private sector, and non-profit stakeholders in planning for a state-wide functional catastrophic earthquake exercise.

Forum on Military Support to Civil Authorities — we convened regional stakeholders to educate them about National Guard and other military capabilities to assist localities if their resources are overwhelmed.

Continuing Challenge Training for First Responders and Public Health Officials — we assisted the California Department of Public Health Environmental Health Laboratory to develop and conduct training courses on  mass casualty toxic air emissions.