ReadyCommunities Partnership Collaborates to Fortify Military Base and Port Local Critical Infrastructure

  • Sep 20, 2010

Public and private sector leaders met in Charleston, S.C. on August 24, 2010 to optimize U.S. military and port community resiliency during a large-scale or national crisis by developing a plan to identify and fortify local critical infrastructure.

The meeting is part of an ongoing public/private project of the ReadyCommunities Partnership, chaired by former Congressman and former DHS Under Secretary Asa Hutchinson to bring together local stakeholders and increase resiliency in our strategic communities by identifying local critical infrastructure and then training and credentialing Crisis Response Officers to avoid the vulnerability of sole reliance by multiple institutions on a single contractor or vendor. Secretary Hutchinson said, "We must develop a thorough and common operating picture for our strategic port and military communities to respond and recover from a national crisis."

Senator Mary Landrieu, Chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Disaster Recovery Subcommittee and Honorary Chairman of the Partnership's Military Base and Port Community Resiliency Initiative chaired the Partnership's March 24, 2010 round-table symposium at the Senate Dirksen Office Building to identify resiliency best practices from leaders from our nation's ports, US Coast Guard, US Northcom, National Guard and private sector including Sprint, ESRI and ExxonMobil.

"Like many others across the country, Louisiana's ports play a key role not only to our energy coast and facilitating the flow of commerce, but also in our homeland security effort," said Sen. Landrieu. "That's why it is so critical for us to have a coordinated, proactive plan to prepare for the aftermath of both natural disasters and acts of terrorism."

Leaders from the US Coast Guard, South Carolina State Ports Authority, Maritime Association of South Carolina, Medical University of South Carolina, Sprint, Charleston Branch Pilot's Association, Project SeaHawk and the City of Charleston Police and Fire Departments participated in the ReadyCommunities Partnership's August 24, 2010 meeting co-hosted by NC4 and Pax Mondial to extend the Partnership's Charleston Model to the southeast and gulf coasts through a pilot project.

The Charleston Model was established in 2007 by the ReadyCommunities Partnership by demonstrating how Buffalo, New York and Charleston, SC stakeholder communities could improve stakeholder connectivity through NC4's secure web portal technology.

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