9-1-1 and Emergency Communications Centers
If you manage a 9-1-1 emergency communications call center, you already have requirements to ensure that the center is sufficiently robust and redundant to withstand technical problems that might shut down your call center when needed most, namely, in emergencies.
A standard named NFPA 1221 outlines those requirements. Failure to meet them by a local jurisdiction will not only exacerbate loss of property and life when the call center fails in some future date, but could have the daily negative impact of increasing the fire insurance rates for all property owners in that jurisdiction. The insurance industry’s rating scale is directly linked to community compliance with that NFP code. Compliance pays both immediate financial rewards in addition to minimizing loss in the eventual event of an emergency when the call center might fail.
In the summer of 2006, the committee that promulgates the 1221 standard met to discuss new items in that code including explicit requirements to have 9-1-1 call centers protected from EMP. The NFPA 1221 proposed addition at 4.6.1 stated, “Facilities shall be protected against EMF pulses that would occur from a nuclear blast 5-50 miles from the command center.” See the Report on Comments A2006, Report of the Committee on Public Emergency Service Communication, for section 4.6.1, published on the NFPA website, http://www.nfpa.org/assets/files/PDF/ROP/1221-06-ROC.pdf. This was the first of a number of steps that will continue to place attention on the need for emergency communication centers to be protected from intentional electromagnetic interference such as EMP.
COOP
Federal agencies are already required to protect their essential functions and critical infrastructure according to executive orders and documents such as FPC 65 outlining Continuity Of Operations (COOP) plans. Since safekeeping of vital records and databases must be secured under all circumstances, this requires EMP planning and protection. Since federal agencies have not been fully compliant in this arena, more explicit EMP requirements are being drafted for inclusion into these regulations.
" 6. POLICY: It is the policy of the United States to have in place a comprehensive and effective program to ensure continuity of essential Federal functions under all circumstances. To support this policy the Federal Executive Branch has implemented the Continuity of Operations (COOP) Program.
COOP is defined as the activities of individual departments and agencies and their sub-components to ensure that their essential functions are performed. This includes plans and procedures that delineate essential functions; specify succession to office and the emergency delegation of authority; provide for the safekeeping of vital records and databases; identify alternate operating facilities; provide for interoperable communications; and validate the capability through tests, training, and exercises. All Federal agencies, regardless of location, shall have in place a viable COOP capability to ensure continued performance of essential functions from alternate operating sites during any emergency or situation that may disrupt normal operations." (FPC 65)
See the FPC-65, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Washington, D.C. 20472, as revised June 15, 2004 at the FEMA website, http://www.fema.gov/txt/library/fpc65_0604.txt .