Are we overly dependent on Electricity — especially during Disasters?
The world at large — including the world of Emergency Management (EM) — is heavily reliant on electricity and technology. EM’s use of Communications and Information Technology (IT) systems are also heavily reliant on electricity. Access to a continuous source of electricity (Sustainable Electrical Grid, Sufficient backup power, etc.) has become the keystone Essential Element of Information. Without electricity, fairly quickly all other infrastructures will fail. Each infrastructure element has dependencies on the other — and this is important to Emergency Management in that Mission Essential Functions are linked to infrastructure elements. Deltares, a water/environmental and infrastructure consultant from the Netherlands produced this interdependency graphic, which is part of a report they made on Hurricane Harvey:
There is no infrastructure sector that is not connected somehow to the use of electricity and technology. EM in the United States must support all of these during Response and Recovery, through the national and state’s/territorial/tribal entity’s Mission Essential Functions. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has Energy (Power Grid, Fuel) as one of its seven Community Lifelines, which are monitored as key situational awareness metrics for maintenance and restoration during a Response (Communications is…
