The Puget Sound Region has received funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Regional Catastrophic Preparedness Grant Program (RCPGP) to address the enormous risk the region faces in the event of a Cascadia Subduction Zone (CSZ) earthquake. The CSZ is a 1,000 kilometer long subduction zone stretching from British Columbia to Oregon and could generate a 9.0 magnitude earthquake.  Pacific NorthWest Economic Region (PNWER) will bring together stakeholders across the region to identify how Puget Sound waterways can be used to transport key goods and personnel in the event of a disastrous earthquake that will likely leave air and ground transportation infrastructure significantly damaged. The project is divided into two phases which will take place over the course of three years. In phase 1, a series of workshops explored port area capabilities and opportunities for collaboration among private and public sector stakeholders in the response and recovery from a major earthquake. An initial series of three workshops introduced emergency managers to the maritime industry, explore earthquake risk, identify specific maritime assets that could be used to resupply Community Points of Distribution (CPODs), and began to map those assets and evaluate how they can be instrumental in resupplying Puget Sound communities. 

The regional Maritime Resilience workshops took place in September, October and November 2021. For slides and recordings of those workshops, you can go to this website. 

An additional series of workshops took place in Spring of 2022 and focused on each of the six port areas in more depth. A final, regionwide workshop brought back all stakeholders together to review work accomplished and identified additional gaps and opportunities for the maritime sector to engage in emergency preparedness and resilience. 

Phase 2 of this project will analyze the data collected in Phase 1 to generate a Maritime Resilience Framework. This Framework will be tested in a tabletop exercise. Additional workshops will be facilitated to socialize and train the Framework. The final product will be a maritime annex added to the regional catastrophic plans to identify key opportunities to engage the maritime sector in response, recovery, and restoration. 

Spring 2022 Workshops

In the Spring of 2022, the workshop series was held with six sub-regional events (recordings of webinars are linked below):

• Everett - February 3 - Workshop notes
• Tacoma - February 10 - Workshop notes
• Bellingham -March 3 - Workshop notes
• Olympia - March 10 - Workshop notes
• Seattle - March 24 - Workshop notes
• Bremerton - April 14 - Workshop notes
• Region-wide - May 24 - Workshop notes
  

Who attended? 

​Tug & barge operators; carriers; fishing fleets; trucking fleet owners/operators; drayage services; salvage & dive operations; tribal maritime organizations; yacht clubs; marina operators; marine industry labor organizations; and others interested in innovative emergency preparedness solutions

For additional details, contact Emily Rankin, Program Coordinator, at emily.rankin@pnwer.org

For more information on Regional Maritime Resilience Planning, contact:
Sasha Rector
Regional Catastrophic Program Coordinator 
King County Office of Emergency Management 
srector@kingcounty.gov
206-205-4071

To learn more about CPODs in the Puget Sound, contact: 
Tara Edens
Community Resilience Program Manager
Snohomish County Department of Emergency Management
425-388-5129
tara.edens@co.snohomish.wa.us