7 Best Practices for

Emergency Preparedness
and Response
The Impact of Major
Crises and Events
The number of major crises and events this year have highlighted
the need for electric utilities to assess emergency preparedness and
response capabilities and discern whether current processes both
meet their needs for safety and continuity in the current climate, and
also meet industry compliance standards.

It is essential that utility companies regularly revisit preparedness

plans, including revising or updating action plans, checklists, response Tasks include:
guides, and other processes that are specific to the unique needs of the
+ Event Reporting + Reliability Coordination
organization and industry requirements.
+ Communications + Planning and Response Mapping
An incident management technology platform provides the tools utility
companies need to gain complete situational awareness with a common + Emergency Operations
operating picture or real-time view of all situations and events. The
platform can be used on a day-to-day basis and as well as for effective With rapidly changing situations, electric utilities need the
response during natural disasters such as wildfires and storms, human- capability to respond quickly and effectively to any critical
caused disasters such as terrorism, acts of violence, or cyber-attacks, incident with detailed plans and procedures laying out concrete
or public health threats and emergencies. An incident management actions for response and recovery to save lives, minimize
technology platform also helps with comprehensive critical incident damage or loss of property, and maintain business continuity.
management planning by providing the necessary capabilities to help
Effective incident management technology platforms provide
assess potential risks and adjust plans to ensure preparedness for any
comprehensive, up-to-the-minute situational awareness which
incident, emergency or disaster.
allows greater flexibility and better decision making through a
In particular, with the COVID-19 pandemic and a record wildfires season more complete grasp of critical data and details.
in the western U.S., electric utilities should consider whether their current
Recent crisis situations have had a significant impact on
incident management technology provides the capabilities necessary for
preparedness and response activities – particularly COVID-19
such essential tasks.
and western wildfires.

7 Best Practices for Emergency Preparedness and Response

COVID-19
The COVID-19 pandemic has
highlighted the need for businesses Five areas of focus for utilities in the
and organizations, including electric
utilities, to maintain continuity of
COVID-19 crisis include:
operations, as well as capabilities 1. Continuity of operations at control centers
for remote coordination and
2. Continuity of operations at generation facilities
collaboration.
3. Access to, and operations in, restricted or quarantined areas
The industry is coordinating
closely with government partners 4. Protocols for mutual assistance
through the Electricity Subsector
Coordinating Council (ESCC). 5. Supply chain challenges
Currently, the ESCC is holding high-
level coordination calls twice a week Among the most important capabilities for businesses is to have
with senior leadership from the situational awareness of all conditions and the ability to track
Departments of Energy, Homeland essential information and communicate with everyone involved,
Security, and Health and Human from employees to emergency management and other local, state
Services, the Centers for Disease or federal officials.
Control and Prevention, the Federal
Having complete situational awareness, contact tracing, tracking,
Energy Regulatory Commission,
monitoring, and reporting capabilities is crucial to help control
and the North American Electric
the spread of COVID-19, to protect health and safety, maintain
Reliability Corporation.
continuity, and to respond to any other critical incident or
Utilities’ leadership teams and emergency that may occur.
emergency response teams
The right incident management technology platform gives
should reassess their emergency
organizations the real-time situational awareness they need
preparedness and action plans
during critical incidents and emergencies in order to track,
to keep employees, customers,
monitor, and respond effectively.
suppliers and business partners
safe while also focusing on facilities
safety and continuity.

3
WILDFIRES
The number of wildfires has
continued to grow year over
year with 2020 more than
doubling the amount of total
acreage burned the prior year.

The worst case for utilities in

a wildfire response scenario is
sending mutual aid utility crews
into a hot zone only for them
to be endangered by a lack of
coordination between their
Firefighters need to be aware of utilities’ An effective incident
crews, first responders, and
management technology
other stakeholders. Effective infrastructure and activities in the field,
platform supports emergency
situational awareness, and should have access to important response activities including
communication, and information such as: receiving and disseminating
collaboration are key to
+ Location awareness between utility crews and firefighters essential information across the
maintaining safety of all
enterprise, situation reports,
stakeholders.
+ Staging area awareness – to reduce competition for site, monitoring weather conditions,
Communication is critical and confusion on site facilities status, tracking
during an emergency response personnel, deploying equipment,
+ Zone status tracking – sharing/posting of evacuation
and requires the capabilities receiving or sending requests for
orders, right to return orders
to share information and data resources, and communicating
quickly, in real time with the + Credentialing tracking – confirming what is needed with internal and external
required internal and external to enter a restricted zone stakeholders.
stakeholders, including team
members and employees as + Maps – sharing map layers on fire locations,
well as fire or law enforcement wind speed, predictions, infrastructure
first responders and local, + Shutting off power
state and federal emergency
management agencies.

7 Best Practices for Emergency Preparedness and Response

Best Practices for Emergency
Management and Response
Utility companies should regularly assess emergency preparedness and response capabilities to ensure
maximum effectiveness to safeguard lives, mitigate damage to property, facilities, and equipment, to
minimize costly downtime, and to ensure compliance with industry regulatory standards.

Here are 7 key aspects and best practices related to emergency

preparedness and response that electric utility companies should
evaluate and consider:

1. COMPLIANCE
Reduce exposure to compliance violations with the mandatory NERC Reliability Standards and more
effectively safeguard against sanctions and directives related to the Violation Risk Factors and Violation
Severity Levels. Strong audit capabilities in a common platform for preparedness and response are
especially helpful in the compliance monitoring process. A common platform documents and offers
evidence for the utility to address any inquiries.

NERC Reliability Standards are revised frequently, so it is important to ensure your incident
management solution will be compliant to new standards from NERC, especially concerning
coordinated operations and resource planning and allocation.

NERC’s Reliability Standards outline strategies for risk-based solutions which suggest that
“a risk-based reliability requirement should be framed as: who, under what conditions (if any),
shall perform what action, to achieve what particular result or outcome that reduces a stated
risk to the reliability of the bulk power system?”

5
2. CONSISTENCY 5. EFFECTIVENESS
Consider a common incident management technology platform An effective incident management technology platform enables
that binds enterprise departments and functions for a structured faster recognition of enterprise actions and situational event status
and repeatable approach to preparedness and response, thus through coordinated management, following industry standards.
mitigating risk exposure.
6. DATA COLLECTION
3. COST MANAGEMENT An end-to-end incident management technology platform that
The incident management technology platform should provide incorporates the necessary internal departments and business
a scalable platform that allows for tracking and monitoring daily functions will increase the context around generation and
activities, yet is able to rapidly support a full enterprise call to action. transmission decisions and justifications.

4. PRODUCTIVITY 7. EXERCISES
The incident management technology platform should also allow Using an incident management technology platform supports
capabilities for data linking and situational awareness across and facilitates regular training exercises so the enterprise and
enterprise departments, which leads to a reduction of effort employees are more informed and familiar with how the utility
and heightened focus on reliability and risk mitigation. will respond in an event.

7 Best Practices for Emergency Preparedness and Response

Situational awareness is central to faster By using the WebEOC incident
and more decisive response, and that’s management technology platform, which
where incident management solutions like is the most widely used and battle-tested
WebEOC® play a key role. Preparedness, solution in the industry, electric utilities
response, and recovery can be significantly can ensure more effective preparedness
enhanced by leveraging a centralized and response, and maintain compliance
platform that provides comprehensive, to NERC Standards.
real-time understanding and a common
operating picture of critical incidents
as they unfold to help your team SCHEDULE A DEMO
accurately assess risks, minimize impacts,
and manage responses to safeguard
employees and maintain continuity.