The robustness of energy grids in recent years has had some bad press, with both the Colonial Pipeline hack and the winter storm in Texas that left many people without heat or with horrific energy bills making headlines. In response, it’s important for emergency managers to reconsider what is needed to help keep grids up and running in the face of both natural and man-made disasters, or to be able to restore them to operation as soon as possible, according to an article in Homeland Security Today.
For emergency managers associated with the power industry, the improvement of operational communications is one way to help support this issue through the use of multi-communication vehicles, and reaching out to individual electricity and gas providers. That way, in the event of a general outage or disruption, tools for communication will be available for use.
Similarly, emergency managers can reach out to energy providers in advance, to find out both what they can do to help bring systems back online, and what they should absolutely avoid doing as it may worsen the situation—in some cases, this can involve refocusing efforts to deprioritize debris removal from roads, and emphasize removal of debris from around key electrical or gas infrastructure.
Above all, bringing together people from power industries, government, and emergency response for tabletop exercises can help identify areas where all partners can work together to add robustness to these complicated and critical systems.
Source:
https://www.hstoday.us/featured/energy-resilience-what-can-emergency-managers-do-right-now/
