New Resilient Power Guidance Added to the CISA Resilient Toolkit Portal

Major power outages from disasters or manmade events can substantially exacerbate emergency response operations. This can jeopardize the health and safety of personnel and substantially increase property damage. It is imperative that critical facilities and sites continue to operate during power outages to provide essential services to the population and to support the recovery effort. Any electrical grid outage can have cascading effects, and force critical facilities to rely on their own backup power generation (if they have it) and energy storage capabilities to maintain mission effectiveness for an extended period of time. 

CISA recently released the Ten Steps to Resilient Power to help emergency and business continuity managers implement the Resilient Power Best Practices for Critical Facilities and Sites (RPBP). The RPBP provides guidelines, analysis, background material, and references to improve mission resilience through the use of backup and emergency power systems during power outages. This can help the nation reduce risks to, and strengthen resilience of, America’s critical infrastructure. 

The Ten Steps is the newest addition to CISA’s Public Safety Communications and Cyber Resiliency Toolkit. Together, the Ten Steps and the RPBP help continuity managers create a comprehensive, risk-informed Business Continuity and Continuity of Operations resilient power plan to ensure their facilities are resilient and mission ready.

The target audience for the Ten Steps includes executives, chief engineers, emergency preparedness and continuity planning personnel, and those involved with cybersecurity, physical security, telecommunications, information technology, and procurement, including contractors and vendors.

The first step with any major threat to operations is understanding risk and capabilities to mitigate that risk. This guide was developed with resilience in mind for any facility size or mission scope. If you are part of a local government, a healthcare or communications provider, or an owner or operator of any type of critical infrastructure, this tool is for you. 

To learn more about the Toolkit, visit Public Safety Communications and Cyber Resiliency Toolkit | CISA.