Disaster Preparedness:Increasing Community Resilience to Water Service Interruptions

摘要

Imagine a day without the ability to provide potable water and sanitation for your community. In the event of a large-scale natural disaster or intentional disruption in water services, large portions of a city, county, or state could be without drinking water and/or wastewater service for days. It has been estimated that 237,600 water main breaks occur annually in the United States (Kirmeyer et al, 1994). Although drinking water and wastewater utilities continue to identify solutions to prevent service interruptions, community stakeholders also must be better prepared to recover when systems are affected. The US Environmental Protection Agency's (USEPA's) Community- Based Water Resiliency (CBWR) electronic tool provides utilities and community stakeholders with resources and a path toward resiliency.