Is Our Emergency Action Plan Time Sensitive?

摘要

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) implemented a Time Sensitive Initiative in 2009 to ensure Emergency Action Plans (EAP) for FERC Projects are effective and the response times are minimized during a dam failure. Dam owners are required to perform a sudden failure assessment to determine if the duration of the response time makes their EAP time sensitive, i.e. insufficient time for warnings to reach people before they are impacted by flooding. If it is, then additional measures to reduce response times must be evaluated to make the EAP more effective. In 2019, East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) performed a sudden failure assessment in collaboration with local emergency management agencies potentially affected by a failure of two of EBMUD's FERC jurisdictional dams on the western slope of the California Sierra Nevada foothills. An overview of the process and results are discussed as well as the next steps to reduce response times.