Homeland Security Assignment

You are the city manager of Wet Town, Mississippi. Your community considers its greatest threat to be hurricanes. It is January, and you have only 6 months to help the underresourced emergency management team develop refined plans for preparing for and responding to a hurricane of at least a category 3 strength. Your city council has tasked you with developing a broad partnership plan that is aimed at identifying industries, civic organizations, facilities, and other capabilities (like first responder capabilities, interagency partner networks, and so on) with which the city should develop formal agreements. Your time, staff, and resources are limited, so focus on the top 5 industries, facilities, or capabilities with which the city must partner. You may choose whole types of a capability or specific individual organizations, but a type counts as only 1 in the list of 5.

Assignment Guidelines

Complete the following:

• Identify which 5 types of partners the city should focus its energy toward. For each one, provide the following:

o Explain why you consider these partners crucial for emergency response activities.
o What capability does each infrastructure, capability, or group normally provide?
o How will this capability be relied upon during a crisis?
o Detail any possible ways it will be relied upon.
o Detail the consequences to the community resulting from the loss or degradation of each asset or capability.
o How will each capability's degradation or loss impact other critical infrastructure, capabilities, or groups?
o Who will mitigate the consequences of this capability's loss, and how?

• For each identified infrastructure, capability, or group, detail what the elements of a partnership should include, and answer the following:

o What are the potential benefits and costs to the infrastructure, capability, or group because of this arrangement?
o What are the potential benefits and costs to the city because of this arrangement?
o What vital information, capability, or capacity does the city need from this entity, and why?
o What mutual support can the city provide the entity in return?

• Draft a sample document that you will recommend that the city use to develop formal agreements with these 5 entities.

o One generic document is acceptable.

o The possibilities can include memorandums of understanding, memorandums of agreement, dual-signed letters of agreement, or anything that you design.

o Ensure that the document explains fully what the city will gain under what circumstances, and what the partner organization should expect to contribute and receive under what circumstances.

• Be sure to reference all of your sources using APA style.