Businesses in Cascadia - CREW

For businesses not involved in the actual response efforts, business continuity planning is theessential piece.CleanScapes: We would like a better understanding of how to work with FEMA so that we areprepared if we are called in by the City of Seattle to help haul debris. How do we track anddocument that for reimbursement? Tamra Biasco briefly reviewed the way FEMA coordinatesEmergency Support Functions (ESFs) and recommended that contractors work closely withtheir counties and, in the case of CleanScapes, the City of Seattle. This was followed by somediscussion about how contracting with various public entities may work during postearthquakeclean-up efforts.CleanScapes also needs space somewhere for a backup facility. We are currently looking forsomething in Shoreline. We would like to examine the possibility of sharing space with someother organization—it would be useful to find ways to share resources and storage space inorder to make the costs of backup facilities more manageable.We would also like to know what communication backup systems people are using. I have tensatellite phones, but it would be good to know what works and what doesn’t work—the bestpractices.BECU: If our planning efforts are to be meaningful and productive, we need to know what we’replanning for. There may be things that we really need to do by Day 2, but it’s possible thosethings are not even on our radar right now. If we’re in an area where the power isn’t going tobe up for five days, or if there comes into being a plan that directs the distribution of diesel, itwould really be helpful to know this in advance—to know the priorities and who is likely tobe at the top of the list for critical resources and services.BECU would also be interested in learning about what works best for communication backupsystems—the best practices.We would like to have access to hazard maps with layering options—we would like to be ableto add our own layers. For planning and mitigation purposes, it would help to have the abilityto outline where the known hazards are, which hazards can be mitigated, which areas to avoidcompletely, where critical bridges and transportation components are, and so forth. This mapwould need to be a really good product to be useful (i.e. sufficiently detailed and accurate). APDF would be great. You may want to charge a nominal fee so that the product has a greaterperceived value among users.(Charles Davis of Washington Federal added that such information could also help financialinstitutions develop strategies for sharing facilities or temporarily sending the customers ofone bank to another to ensure that people’s needs are met following an earthquake.)The Washington Emergency Management Division and the state Department of NaturalResources (DNR) are putting together a database that presents Washington’s earthquakescenarios. It will be accessible through DNR’s website. This project may provide some of thefeatures and information that Mathew McBride of BECU just described. Tamra Biasco ofSeattle, Washington | 29