Following recent catastrophic events, such as natural disasters and active shooter situations, resiliency has been a common keyword during the rebuilding process for cities that have been affected by the unknown. It’s important that cities maintain a resilient front while they tend to the damage done, but resiliency is something that can be practiced year-round, before the unforeseen strikes. Cities can plan for natural and human-made disasters by investing in strategic technology and security improvements that enable them to act more quickly during an event and bounce back more efficiently after.
Lean on Existing Infrastructure
Before choosing what upgrades to make, cities should look at their existing infrastructure and determine how they can utilize what is already in place to make retrofits that will add to their overall resiliency. Taking advantage of current infrastructure helps minimize the cost of technology upgrades and allows for an easier integration process. Existing lighting infrastructures are a smart place for most cities to start. Not only are lighting fixtures a crucial part to the success of a municipality, but they are also simple to use as an integration base for other technologies to help be proactive in their resiliency efforts.
For example, in the event of serious flooding or wildfires, a mandatory evacuation is usually instated by the municipalities affected. This forces high volumes of people to leave their homes and find the safest route out in the timeliest manner. Street lights play a critical role during these circumstances and are used as a literal guiding light for people. To help boost security and ensure people are being directed properly to the safest roadways, drones can be stationed on lighting structures where they are charged and protected by their hub. Drone technology can help identify the best exits and then use their own lights with voice messaging to guide the public in the safest direction. Lights can change colors depending on the voice cues to let people know what roadways they should and should not be using.
The same cues can be used for rest stops or gas stations to let evacuees know whether supplies are still available or not. The lights and voice messaging can also help alleviate heavy traffic, as everyone is trying to use the same evacuation routes. This is an example of how cities can become more practical and resilient by retrofitting existing infrastructure, ensuring they are prepared in advance of any situation that warrants mass evacuation.
However, drones aren’t the only retrofits that can be stationed on lighting infrastructures. Sensors and other equipment to detect gas leaks, thermal energy or smoke, can be installed to help cities spot an issue before it more widely affects the population. These types of upgrades make cities more efficient and safe.
To help increase safety efforts, much like how cities should assess existing infrastructure, it’s equally as important to run an audit of current security measures as city officials can likely implement smart integrations with their traditional security systems to up level security efforts.
Security’s Part in Resiliency
It’s difficult for a city to achieve resiliency if it is not secure and the public feels unsafe. Looking past natural disasters, unfortunate, human-induced events, like active shooter situations, have become more prevalent in high-trafficked, soft target areas such as concert venues, casinos, schools and hospitals. It’s vital that areas with a constant flux of people are equipped with comprehensive security systems to protect patrons and maintain resiliency 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Access control, alarm panels, video surveillance, mass notification and mobile application technologies, among other traditional security features, are compatible with many advanced systems, such as active shooter detection systems. And, while many of the aforementioned facilities are typically searching for the latest technologies to help security efforts, integrating a shooter detection system with an existing security system can be a meaningful addition to an overall public safety and resiliency strategy.
Reducing response time to a potential threat is crucial for high-trafficked areas as they’re most susceptible to an active shooter situation. The near real-time information provided by gunshot detection technology is a quicker and more effective way for law enforcement and first responders to receive the information they need to properly address a situation. New advancements, like sensors that can spot infrared flashes as an additional way to confirm a gunshot, can be integrated with traditional security technology like video surveillance to enable more accurate emergency notifications. The dual authentication between the sensors and video helps to reduce false alarms and minimizes the time that would be spent needing an expert to verify the acoustics of a gunshot. Taking the technology one step further, live video surveillance footage and building floor plans can be connected to provide first responders with the most up to date status and an enhanced understanding of the situation. This allows emergency personnel and security professionals to be alerted within seconds of the first shot, and respond to the correct area that the event is occurring more efficiently.
In addition, similar to how drones can help lead residents to safe and less crowded evacuation routes, gunshot detection systems can be connected to smart lighting structures to help prevent people from entering an active shooter situation. The technology can be configured through connected street lights to alert residents of safe or unsafe travel routes during an active shooter situation. This allows the information being collected to become useful not only to the people responding to the scene but also to people who could be trying to enter hazardous territory.
While cities hope it never needs to be used, active shooter technology can help minimize lives lost and accelerate resiliency efforts. Through quicker response times from first responders, security personnel and building or venue managers, and integrating with infrastructures on the outside, the technology can help improve a city’s overall public safety initiatives.
In conjunction with keeping the public safe, city officials need to identify any critical infrastructure that needs to be protected from the unknown.
Protecting Critical Infrastructure
In the United States, there are 16 critical infrastructure sectors – including Commercial Facilities Sector and Government Facilities Sector – that are considered so crucial that their destruction would have detrimental consequences nationally. As part of a proactive resiliency plan, municipalities must be aware of these sectors and if any apply to them because of the Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) standards they must adhere to.
Though every city’s situation is unique depending on the setting and vulnerabilities identified, a tailored, comprehensive solution is essential to protecting critical infrastructure. There are several technologies that can be implemented and work together to lead protection efforts, and not all are as complicated as some city officials might think. For instance, access control, a vital component for any traditional security system to have, is equally as important for critical infrastructures as it is for many buildings because it is responsible for controlling who has access to the area. Multi-Factor authentication can be installed which requires a pin and a card for access. This is an easy way to guarantee that only designated individuals can access the area, but they can also provide a clear log of who was there and when. By pairing access control with video surveillance, another traditional security system, officials can verify who was on site should an incident occur.
Along with these systems, there are more complex components that can be integrated to help protect critical infrastructure. Thermal cameras can help detect people and objects in 24/7 surveillance, and seismic detectors can detect all known types of intruder attacks, such as sledgehammers, diamond head drills, explosives, hydraulic pressure tools and thermal tools. Intrusion protection, such as more advanced fencing and lighting, is another component that should be added to the protection strategy for critical infrastructure. While CIP standards may not apply to every city, the implementations that are taken to protect these areas can also be instituted to secure other important infrastructures.
How Planning for the Unexpected Leads to Resiliency
Retrofitting existing infrastructure, implementing active shooter detection technology and protecting critical infrastructure can seem overwhelming. However, being unprepared for mass evacuation, an active shooter situation or a damaging blow to a government facility has more disadvantages. Planning for the unknown can help cities be resilient every day, and not only when they are in recovery mode from an unfortunate event.
Cities can more easily digest what needs to be done to achieve resiliency by forming their plans piece by piece. By inspecting public safety requirements and infrastructure needs, cities can then decide what upgrades must be implemented and how to best execute against them. Having a plan in place can better prepare cities for what could come and ultimately makes them more resilient.
Resiliency enables an infrastructure and people to anticipate, survive and recover from external disruptions. By having a proactive approach to resiliency, cities can better maintain ‘normalcy’ and are able to look beyond traditional emergency plans to safeguard communities as quickly as possible during and after an unexpected threat.
About Joe Oliveri
As vice president and general manager, security, for Johnson Controls Building Solutions North America, Joe Oliveri manages the full P&L responsibility for the security business in the U.S. and Canada. He also leads the company’s Advanced Integration Business and plays an integral role in the company’s network of security innovation programs, including centers in Silicon Valley and Tel Aviv, Israel. Joe holds a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from Northeastern University and a Bachelor’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
