Item 35 - FY 2022 Emergency Management Performance Grant

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HSGP Appendix | 2023 Page A-48 when developing an emergency communications investment to ensure projects support the state or territory’s strategy to improve their communications capabilities with the goal of achieving fully operable, interoperable, and resilient communications. In addition, grant applicants should work with public and private entities, and across jurisdictions and disciplines, to demonstrate engagement with the Whole Community in accordance with Presidential Policy Directive-8 (PPD-8). For regional, cross-border initiatives, FEMA requires applicants to coordinate projects with national level emergency communications coordination bodies, such as the National Council of Statewide Interoperability Coordinators (NCSWIC) and the Regional Emergency Communications Coordination Working Groups (RECCWGs). The NCSWIC promotes and coordinates state-level activities designed to ensure the highest level of public safety communications across the nation. RECCWGs are congressionally mandated planning and coordination bodies located in each FEMA Region and provide a collaborative forum to assess and address the survivability, sustainability, operability, and interoperability of emergency communications systems at all levels of government. Grant-funded investments that are coordinated with these bodies will help ensure that federally funded emergency communications investments are interoperable and support national policies. Resilient Communications Guidance Nothing better demonstrates a modern nation than its ability to effectively communicate. The risk imposed by the reliance on communication systems by government and the private sector can be reduced by understanding dependencies, analyzing effects, and taking action. Entities planning to use HSGP funding for communications investments are encouraged to work with state emergency management agencies, SWICs, SIGBs, and appropriate stakeholders at the regional, state, local, territorial, and tribal levels to: •Establish robust, resilient, reliable, and interoperable communications capabilities. Account for the mission impact of communication system disruptions in your planning; •Ensure mission-related communications (voice, video, data, and network security requirements) are adequately planned for and understood. It is important to maintain current documentation of your communication systems architecture and perform regular audits. Your ability to continue operations is dependent on the availability of and access to communications systems with sufficient resiliency, redundancy, and accessibility to perform essential functions and provide critical services during a disruption; •Ensure critical communication systems connectivity among key government leadership, internal elements, other supporting organizations, and the public under all conditions. As such, organizations should ensure current copies of vital records, including electronic files and software, are backed-up and maintained off-site; •Ensure all communications systems/networks are traced from end to end to identify all Single Points of Failure (SPF). In doing so, grantees should work with communication service providers to add redundancy at key critical infrastructure facilities as needed; •Ensure key communication systems resiliency through: o Ensuring availability of backup systems; o Ensuring diversity of network element components and routing; o Ensuring geographic separation of primary and alternate transmission media; o Ensuring availability of back-up power sources; o Ensuring availability and access to systems that are not dependent on commercial infrastructure; o Maintain spares for designated critical communication systems; and o Work with commercial suppliers to remediate communication Single Points of Failure. •All communications system owners are encouraged to address the following issues: