The single most important place to start adding value in emergency preparedness is. . .

Since complex is often as simple as it gets in emergency planning and coordination, the place to start by way of adding much more value are those initiatives already underway to manage the complex interconnectivities and vulnerabilities of lifeline infrastructures.

This means capitalizing on existing opportunities beyond the official emergency management structures and plans at the local, regional, state and federal levels there. The aim is to leverage existing initiatives that have already “seen the light.” The priority in focusing on those who actively acknowledge the centrality of interconnectivities is made all the more visible because these are still early days in thinking through emergency management in terms of infrastructural connectivities.

When it comes to our recent US Pacific Northwest research, ongoing professional efforts focusing around inter-infrastructural connectivities were the Cascadia Rising exercises in Oregon and Washington State, the Cascadia Lifelines Dependencies Collaborative (“CSZ Lifelines Group”) in Oregon, the Regional Disaster Preparedness Organization (RDPO) in Washington State, various city and county groups in both states, as well as state personnel with emergency support functions, whose duties and responsibilities explicitly entail lifeline interconnections.

A priority is assembling and undertaking major table-top exercises and improvisation drills with these groups around unfolding Magnitude 9 earthquake scenarios centered around shifting interconnectivities of water, electricity, telecoms and roads in western Oregon and Washington State. The core competency called for in these table-tops is in the area of interconnectivities. These people are targeted because they already work outside their infrastructural or sectoral siloes.

The advantage of starting with ongoing or already-existing major initiatives is that they involve professionals who know much more by way of what needs to be done in preparing for large-scale emergencies. This means that when asked, “Have you read this report on seismic vulnerability here?,” and they answer “No, we haven’t,” no one should assume these professionals aren’t as knowledgeable as they must be. (I.e., the professionals may explain their “no” by referring to work already done in actual emergency operations to address shifting and shifted interconnectivities and vulnerabilities, with the staff and resources they have.)

Source: The above is a slightly edited extract from E. Roe and P.R. Schulman (2025). The Centrality of Restoration Resilience Across Interconnected Critical Infrastructures for Emergency Management: A Framework and Key Implications. Oregon Research Institute: Springfield, OR (accessed online at https://www.ori.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/FinalReport_10Aug2025.pdf). Research design, references and other particulars can be found there.