Digital Sandbox Powers Jacksonville Area Risk Management
Field Assessment Goals Met and Exceeded, Remains on Budget and On Schedule
Challenge
In mid-2008, the urban area encompassing Jacksonville, Florida and its surrounding communities accepted a major challenge: to meet the goals of its FEMA risk management grants, the region had to complete detailed field (vulnerability) assessments of 150 of its most critical assets – in less than 2.5 years.
Home to a busy international seaport and airport, as well as the third-largest naval installation in the US, Jacksonville is the largest city by land area in the contiguous United States. Jacksonville also houses the Jacksonville Municipal Stadium and four professional sports teams, and they hosted the Super Bowl XXXIX in 2005. The region, a notorious hurricane zone, also includes more than 140 miles of coastline. In addition to evaluating a wide spectrum of regional assets, the risk analysis also had to address a population of 1.3 million people.
The race was on: the Jacksonville area needed a system for managing its most serious risks by January 2011.
Solution
Meeting this goal demanded nearly flawless coordination and cooperation. The Northeast Florida Regional Council (NEFRC), Florida Dept of Law Enforcement, Jacksonville UASI, and the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office teamed up to drive the initiative. They selected Site Profiler, part of Digital Sandbox’s Risk Analysis Center (RAC) suite of analytic risk management software, for the job.
The Jacksonville team recognized they needed the most effective risk analysis capability possible. Site Profiler provided the means to build and organize a catalog of critical infrastructure and key resources, prioritize them, and generate a baseline analysis to guide effective response. Site Profiler has given stakeholders throughout the Jacksonville area the ability to review specific risk information relevant to every asset. They can access crucial details, cross-reference information, and collectively manage and implement optimally effective responses to risks. Additionally, the Jacksonville team implemented Digital Sandbox’s C/ACAMS integration module. This module serves two purposes, improving Jacksonville’s ability to share information with Federal Government as well as enhancing its Critical Infrastructure Key Resources (CIKR) catalog.
Result
Thanks to the Digital Sandbox software and its fast and widespread adoption by the Jacksonville team, by September 2009 they had already evaluated almost twice the number of assets it initially set out to complete. To date, the UASI is at approximately 250% of the goal they were to reach by January 2011 for their grant, having already completed 390 detailed CIKR asset assessments. Furthermore, the initiative remains on time and on budget – remarkable momentum, especially during a time of decreased budgets and hiring freezes.
