Emergency Preparedness & Resilience

Water is critical to everyday life and NAWC members proactively protect their ability to deliver clean, safe and reliable water and wastewater service to 73 million Americans in any circumstance.

Preparing for tomorrow today

Preparing for tomorrow today

Water resiliency is the ability to respond, recover and adapt quickly.

As stewards of public health and the environment, NAWC members across the country prepare for all hazards, including cases of extreme weather, pandemics, cybersecurity, power outages and more. For water utilities and wastewater systems, resiliency is necessary to properly serve communities and meet regulatory requirements.

A firefighter holding a firehose at full blast.

From the experts

Mark McKoy

Aqua

We need to think about the ‘what ifs.’ What if we had an emergency situation? Are we prepared? When you know an emergency situation is coming, nine out of 10 times you can expect an issue. Get ahead of it. Make the investment and adjust accordingly.

A portrait of Mark McKoy, a black man wearing a dark grey suit, white shirt, and red and white checkered tie.

Emergency Preparedness

Emergency preparedness is paramount in delivering clean, safe and reliable water.

NAWC members know that anything can happen, even the worst-case scenario. Which is why each member company performs exercises to prepare for emergency situations. NAWC members stress test their systems, and employees, to see how they would respond in a crisis situation. Stress tests also shed light on where improvements can be made.

NAWC member companies understand they must be malleable to extreme weather. When there were record-breaking heat temperatures in the summer, NAWC member companies swapped work schedules so employees were not working in the blazing heat.

When COVID-19 hit, many NAWC member companies responded by voluntarily suspending all disconnections for nonpayment, ensuring Americans would not lose access to their water and wastewater service.

And when the devastating fires hit Maui, HI, NAWC member company water service was not impeded thanks to the emergency plan in place.

NAWC member companies know all too well that anything can happen, and they meticulously prepare and plan to get ahead of crisis scenarios that could impact the community they serve.