Thank you for joining the Introduction to Community Lifelines independent study course. This course provides an introduction to the Community Lifelines construct and its application during response operations to drive incident stabilization.

This course is broken out into four units, each of which contain two to three Enabling Learning Objectives (ELOs), followed by a summative post-course evaluation:

• Unit 1: History and Overview
• Unit 2: Community Lifelines
• Unit 3: Assessing Status and Priority
• Unit 4: Lifelines and Crisis Action Planning

To help you keep track of your place in the course, the current lesson title will be displayed in the upper center of each screen, under the course title. Each lesson overview states the approximate length of the lesson. This course should take approximately one hour to complete, but is self-paced. 

Unit 1 will cover the following enabling learning objectives:

• Define the Community Lifelines construct and its use in emergency management operations
• Recognize the evolution of the lifelines construct based on a historical need to characterize incident impacts and prioritize emergency management efforts during a disaster response

Approximate time for completion: 15 minutes

 The following terms are defined below to provide context necessary for understanding the information presented in Unit 1:

• After-Action Report: A document intended to capture observations of an incident or exercise and make recommendations for improvements
• Core capabilities: Distinct critical elements necessary for achieving the National Preparedness Goal
• Emergency Support Functions: Provide the structure for coordinating federal interagency support for a federal response to an incident
• Situational awareness: The ability to identify, process, and comprehend the critical information about an incident

Links to reference materials are listed below for more information:

1. After-Action Report
2. Core capabilities
3. Emergency Support Functions
4. Situational awareness

Module 1: History and Overview

Background and Evolution of the Community Lifelines

Construct Historically, FEMA collected information according to specific program and activity. The unprecedented scale of disasters in 2017 highlighted FEMA’s challenges with balancing concurrent large-scale operations with Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria, as well as the wildfires in California. The 2017 Hurricane Season After-Action Report identified FEMA’s need to create a more structured prioritization and response concept. The Community Lifelines construct addresses this need by providing an outcome-driven approach that promotes the importance of situational awareness, prioritization of response efforts, and decision-making processes to stabilize an incident.

Defining Community Lifelines

Community Lifelines are the most fundamental elements in the community (e.g. fire, police, hospitals, gas, etc.) that enable a functioning society. The stabilization of these elements are crucial to supporting the day-to-day needs of the community.

The Seven Community Lifelines

There are seven Community Lifelines:

• Safety and Security;
• Food, Water, Shelter;
• Health and Medical;
• Energy;
• Communications
• Transportation; and
• Hazardous Materials

We will describe the Lifelines in greater detail as we go through this course.

Lifelines and Emergency Management

What is the relationship between Lifelines, Emergency Support Functions (or ESF), and core capabilities? ESF’s provide the structure for coordinating federal support by delivering the core capabilities across different agencies. Each of the 15 ESFs comprises a department or agency that has been designated as the ESF coordinator, along with primary and support agencies. ESFs work with leadership to improve preparedness for collaboration and support states’ delivery of core capabilities to stabilize Lifelines. Core capabilities are distinct preparedness elements that help guide response activities during disasters and for achieving preparedness benchmarks. ESFs work with leadership to improve preparedness for collaboration and support states’ delivery of core capabilities to stabilize Lifelines. Think of it as “Ends, Ways, and Means”. To give you an example of how this ties together, ESF #4: Firefighting may help coordinate federal firefighting activities and supports resource requests for public health and medical facilities and teams. This ESF delivers the Fire Management and Suppression core capability and works to achieve the stabilization of the Safety and Security Lifeline. While there is not an official crosswalk connecting Lifelines, ESFs, and core capabilities, you will find that the Lifelines are often linked with certain core capabilities and ESFs.

How Community Lifelines are Incorporated in Planning and Response

The Community Lifelines construct helps emergency managers quickly assess disrupted critical services and plan how to restore them. Pre-incident, lifeline services are provided by the public, private, and non-profit groups within the community. Disruptions to lifeline services may cause significant threats to life and property. Therefore, stabilizing lifelines is the highest priority when responding to disasters.

Tying Lifelines and Emergency Management

The National Preparedness mission areas—Prevention, Protection, Mitigation, Response, and Recovery—identify 32 total core capabilities required to address common threats and hazards.

• The Response core capabilities are the grouping of actions that can be undertaken to stabilize an incident

The relationship between Community Lifelines, core capabilities, and ESFs is conceptualized using the “Ends, Ways, and Means” example:

• Ends: Lifelines describe the services within a community that must be stabilized or re-established (the ends) to alleviate threats to life and property
• Ways: Response core capabilities describe the grouping of actions that can be taken to stabilize and re-establish lifelines. FEMA enhances coordination and integration to execute lines of effort (LOEs) for response and recovery planning and operations
• Means: ESFs and other organizing bodies (the means) make up the organizational structure across departments, agencies, community organizations, and industries to enhance coordination and integration to deliver the response core capabilities

Incorporating Lifelines into Response

The Community Lifelines construct helps responders and emergency managers quickly assess disrupted services and determine which of the core capabilities are required to deliver and re-establish those  services.

This enables decision makers to:

• Determine the severity of the disaster’s impacts on critical infrastructure;
• Identify limiting factors and gaps to address those impacts; and
• Quickly prioritize solutions to alleviate threats to life and property

This concludes the instructional content for Unit 1.

Unit 1 covered the following topics:

• Background and evolution of the Community Lifelines construct
• Defining the Community Lifelines
• Lifelines and Emergency Management
• How Community Lifelines are Incorporated in Planning and Response

The next unit will dive deeper into the seven Community Lifelines and its breakdown into components and subcomponents.

Unit 2 will cover the following enabling learning objectives:

• Describe how Community Lifelines are applied to gain situational awareness, status reporting, priorities, planning, and operational decision-making
• Define the concept of incident stabilization and how lifelines are used to support stabilization efforts
• Define the seven (7) Community Lifelines and describe its relationship with individual components and sub-components

Approximate time for completion: 15 minutes

 The following terms are defined below to provide context necessary for understanding the information presented in Unit 2:

• Critical Infrastructure: Assets, systems, and networks, whether physical or virtual, so vital to the United States that the incapacitation or destruction of such assets, systems, or networks would have a debilitating impact on security, national economic security, national public health or safety, or any combination of those matters
• Objective: Specific and identifiable actions carried out during an operations
• Response: Activities that address the short-term, direct effects of an incident. Response includes immediate actions to save lives, protect property, and meet basic human needs.

Please visit the following links for more information on the key terms above:

1. Critical Infrastructure
2. Objective
3. Response

Module 2: Community Lifelines

Purpose of Community Lifelines

Lifelines’ primary objectives are to ensure the delivery of critical services and alleviate threats to life and property during a disaster. Lifelines provides responders an outcomes-based approach through situational awareness, status reporting, and support with planning/operational decision-making. Through community lifelines, incident information is reframed and operationalized to:

• Rapidly determine the scale and complexity of a disaster;
• Identify the severity, root causes, and interdependencies of impacts to basic, critical lifesaving and life-sustaining services within impacted areas;
• Prioritize operational objectives that focus response efforts on the delivery of these services;
• Communicate disaster-related information across all levels of public, private, and non-profit sectors using a commonly understood, plain language lexicon; and
• Guide response operations to support and facilitate integration across mission areas

Incident Stabilization

Stabilization occurs when basic lifeline services are provided to the community, either by the rapid re-establishment of services, or through the employment of a contingency response solution. This happens either by the rapid re-establishment of services, or through a temporary response solution. A response solution is usually only for a very limited time. Examples of this include running portable generators to provide electricity or using a tent hospital to provide medical care for a community. The re-establishment of lifeline services implies the normal lifeline services are available within the community through infrastructure repairs or other means, making for a longer-term stabilization solution. Examples may include installation of generators to run a critical facility without grid power or resuming the commercial supply chain to a community.

The Seven Community Lifelines

As stated previously, the Community Lifelines construct is broken out into seven Lifelines:

• Safety and Security;
• Food, Water, Shelter;
• Health and Medical;
• Energy;
• Communications;
• Transportation; and
• Hazardous Materials

Lifeline Components and Sub-Components Each lifeline comprises multiple components that encompass the general scope of services for a lifeline. For example, the Food, Water, Shelter Lifeline contains four components:

• Food;
• Water;
• Shelter; and
• Agriculture

These components are further divided into relevant sub-components that provide a granular level of services to a community. For example, the Water component is made up of three sub-components:

• Drinking Water Utilities;
• Wastewater Systems; and
• Commercial Water Supply Chain

Explaining the Seven Community Lifelines

The Safety and Security Lifeline includes law enforcement and government services, as well as the associated assets that maintain communal security, provide search and rescue, suppress and manage fires, and support public safety.

The Food, Water, Shelter Lifeline is characterized by support systems that enable the sustainment of human life, such as food retail and distribution networks, water treatment, transmission and distribution systems, housing, and agriculture resources.

The Health and Medical Lifeline comprises of infrastructure and service providers for medical care, public health, patient movement, fatality management, behavioral health, veterinary support, and the medical industry.

The Energy (Power & Fuel) Lifeline is made up of electricity service providers and generation, transmission, and distribution infrastructure, as well as gas and liquid fuel processing, and delivery systems.

Explaining the Seven Community Lifelines (continued)

The Communications Lifeline consists of infrastructure owners and operators of broadband internet, cellular and landline telephone networks, cable services, satellite communications services, and broadcast networks (radio/television).

• This includes alerts, warnings, and messages, 911 and dispatch, and access to financial services

The Transportation Lifeline comprises multiple modes of transportation that often serve complementary functions and create redundancy, adding to the resilience in overall transportation networks.

• This includes roads, rail, and air as well as all public transportation

The Hazardous Materials Lifeline is characterized by the systems that mitigate threats to public health or the environment

• This includes chemicals, nuclear/radiological exposure, or other toxic substances that, if not properly handled or contained, cause risk to health.

This concludes the instructional content for Unit 2.

Unit 2 covered the following topics:

• Purpose of Community Lifelines
• Incident Stabilization
• The Seven Community Lifelines
• Lifeline Components and Subcomponents

The next unit will examine how the Community Lifelines construct can be used to establish stabilization targets, assess incident objectives and priorities, and how federal tools are used for situational awareness and status reporting.

Unit 3 will cover the following enabling learning objectives:

• Assess and analyze components and/or sub-components to determine the status of Community Lifelines
• Recognize the tools and products that support situational awareness, reporting, and operational decision-making that organizations use to present disaster impacts, stabilization goals, and status reports

Approximate time for completion: 15 minutes

The following terms are defined below to provide context necessary for understanding the information presented in Unit 3:

• Operational Coordination: Establish and maintain a unified and coordinated operational structure and process that appropriately integrates all critical stakeholders and supports the execution of core capabilities
• Operational Priorities: The desired end-state for the operations

Please visit the following links for more information on the key terms above:

1. Operational Coordination
2. Operational Priorities

Module 3: Assessing Status and Priority

Assessing the Conditions of the Lifelines and their Components

Lifeline conditions are assessed from the perspective of the vulnerability of maintaining and sustaining their delivery; HOW does this impact the community and individual disaster survivor. Emergency managers assess lifeline components using six assessment factors to capture essential information for response decision-makers:

• Component: Identify the effected components that are being impacted by the disaster
• Status: Summarize the root cause(s) of disruption to lifeline services
• Impacts: Explain the disaster impacts to specific communities, disaster survivors, and response operations
• Actions: Describe the actions being taken to stabilize and re-establish the disrupted services
• Limiting Factors: Express issues that are preventing services from being stabilized or re-established
• Stabilization Timeframe: Identifies the conditions and/or expected timeline for lifeline to be stabilized

Incident Stabilization Phases

Community Lifelines can be used by all levels of government, the private sector, and other partners to facilitate operational coordination and drive response outcomes. The graphic shows how Lifelines are applied to support the decision-making process, using the following color-scheme to indicate the status of the incident response:

• Grey indicates the extent of disruption and impacts to lifeline services is unknown
• Blue does not indicate an operational status or condition and is used for administrative purposes, such as presentations and briefings
• Red represents Lifeline services that are disrupted with no solution identified or in progress
• Yellow describes the lifeline services disrupted with a solution in progress, with an estimated time for stabilization identified. Most of the incident response phase will take place in this category, as responders must assess the status, establish incident priorities around unstable Lifelines, organize response actions, establish logistics and resource requirements, and reassess the Lifeline status for stabilization 
• Green indicates when a lifeline is stabilized and basic services are provided to the community, either by the rapid re-establishment of services, or through the employment of a contingency response solution

Reporting Tools and Products

FEMA uses several reporting tools to capture information and provide situational awareness to incident leadership; this enables FEMA to prioritize its efforts throughout the disaster response. The Senior Leadership Brief development process enables the collection, analysis and dissemination of incident information to answer the “What? So What? Now What? And When?” for decision makers. FEMA’s Senior Leadership Brief format integrates community lifelines components and sub-components and identifies Lifeline interdependencies. Lastly, the Daily Operations Briefing is organized around Community Lifelines and provides an overview of the current emergency management situation.

Exploring Reporting Tools and Products

Senior Leadership Briefs are grouped into four tiers:

• Tier IV serves as a form of data collection—or situation reporting—where information is reported and collected to develop a common operating picture
• Tier III provides visualization of the lifeline and component conditions, which can include Geographic Information Systems products, charts, graphs, and other supplemental materials which can be used for resources
• Tier II identifies the status, impact, actions, limiting factors, and estimated time to condition change and re-establishment requirements for each lifeline component
• Tier I includes executive-level information requirements, summarizing the situation, lifeline condition, and critical impacts, actions, and limiting factors for the lifeline

This concludes the instructional content for Unit 3.

Unit 3 covered the following topics:

• Assessing the Conditions of the Lifelines and their Components
• Incident Stabilization Phases
• Reporting Tools and Products

The next unit will examine the relationship between Community Lifelines and crisis action planning, including at the strategic, operational, and tactical level.

Unit 4 will cover the following enabling learning objectives:

• Assign priority to Community Lifelines based on greatest incident impacts toward incident stabilization
• Utilize lifeline status and priorities to develop operational strategies (lines of effort) in order to achieve incident stabilization
• Apply an iterative process of lifeline reassessment based on changing incident conditions and progress of operational strategies

Approximate time for completion: 15 minutes  

 The following terms are defined below to provide context necessary for understanding the information presented in Unit 4:

• Incident Action Plan: A document outlining the control objectives, operational period objectives, and response strategy defined by incident command during response planning.
• Operational Planning: The process by which specific resources, personnel, and asset applications are made to execute the objectives of the strategic plan
• Strategic Planning: The process by which requirements are generated, long-range goals, priorities, and responsibilities are agreed upon, and performance and effectiveness measures are developed
• Tactical Planning: The detailed development and identification of goals, priorities, objectives, and actions tailored to specific situations and fact patterns at an operational level

Please visit the following links for more information on the key terms listed above:

1. Incident Action Plan
2. Operational Planning
3. Strategic Planning
4. Tactical Planning

Module 4: Lifelines and Crisis Action Planning

Stabilization Targets (Strategic)

Strategic plans are established by setting stabilization targets and developing requisite lines of effort/logistical requirements to achieve those targets. Stabilization targets are ideal end-states developed collaboratively based on the incident-specific impacts with key regional, state, local, tribal, and territorial stakeholders. As a reference, these are the “Ends” as described in Module 1. As the incident progresses, these targets are continually examined, validated, and refined. For example, an incident could have a stabilization target for the Health and Medical Lifeline during a major hurricane similar to: All survivors, their pets, and service animals have access to required medical and veterinary care and the medical supply chain is capable of adequately resupplying medical care providers.

Lines of Effort (Operational)

As the incident goes through its operational periods, Operational Planning provides greater detail and analysis for each Lifeline. Recall the “Means” example in Module 1? These are what the Lines of Effort are. They are used to solve the problems that are identified with each lifeline. When determining LOEs and operational strategies during the operational period, it’s important to begin with the stabilization targets (or the “Ends”) in mind. In other words, what does lifeline stabilization look like and what lines of effort are required to get there? Keep in mind that LOEs are not exclusive to a single lifeline. Any LOE can stabilize multiple lifelines simultaneously. For example, providing temporary emergency power is important for the continuous operation of hospital equipment (Health and Medical Lifeline), communications services (Communications Lifeline), water infrastructure (Food, Water, Shelter Lifeline), and other power-dependent efforts.

Incident Action Plans (Tactical)

At the tactical level, the Incident Action Plan (IAP) directs how resources are used in support of the various strategic LOEs. This occurs through the development of incident objectives consistent with the information provided in Lines of Effort. As the Emergency Management team works their way through the Planning P, they continuously evaluate the performance and effectiveness of each LOE. This allows leadership to anticipate when their objectives are reached and then can plan the next set of incident objectives.

Unit 4 covered the following topics:

• Determining stabilization targets based on incident priorities
• Developing LOEs to meet stabilization targets and achieve incident stabilization
• Continuously assessing lifeline status based on changing incident conditions and progress of operational strategies

Please advance to the Course Summary slide to view an overview of the topics covered throughout this course.

Thank you for completing this course. You should have an introductory-level understanding of the Community Lifelines construct and the following topics:

• Background and evolution of the Community Lifelines construct as a result of the need for a structured prioritization and response concept
• The seven lifelines and how they are broken down into unique components and subcomponents
• The relationship between lifelines, ESFs, and core capabilities
• How lifelines are applied during an incident response to work toward stabilization
• The reporting products used to gain situational awareness and provide status reports
• The relationship between lifelines and crisis action planning

The following infographic was created to provide an in-depth summary of the topics covered in this course. Please feel free to save or print a copy for future reference. Click here to access the infographic.

For more information on the Community Lifelines construct, please visit the Community Lifelines Implementation Toolkit, Version 2.0.