Activities and resources needed to attain recovery outcomes will vary depending on the scenario, context, and location of the chemical incident as well as the incident’s impacts on the local infrastructure, economy, and workforce. Many response activities described earlier in this document will continue into and throughout the recovery phase, although they may change in focus and intensity. For example, with the immediate hazard addressed during response, the overall objectives of recovery plans and prioritizations are to restore critical services as quickly as possible to limit cascading effects, and to return the affected community to a sense of normalcy. Meeting these objectives should be based on community, regional, and national needs, including:
- Protecting human and animal health and safety
- Minimizing disruption to the economy
- Ensuring continuity of government and business operations
- Minimizing environmental impacts
- Maintaining national security
At recovery outset, infrastructure recovery objectives should be clearly identified and prioritized. Highest priority should be given to restoration of:
- Infrastructure assets that produce significant capacity, or provide multiple high-priority services
- Dependencies that enable the highest priority government and commercial services and assets to function
- “Cornerstone” industries central to the region’s economy85
Lower priority can be given to services and assets that are redundant, easily replaced, or not necessary for the functioning of other services and assets. Resources may need to be reprioritized if any of these qualities cease to be true during the response. Reprioritization may also be needed if restoration timelines for high priority infrastructure and services are not being met. In fact, for all recovery activities, decisions made during pre-event planning should be continually re-assessed as the situation changes and new information emerges.
The operation of critical infrastructure may be limited due to personnel injuries, lack of resources, and/or contamination.
Hazard impacts may affect national and global markets. The resulting commercial implications (e.g., supply chain) will challenge response and recovery actions.
Footnotes
85. U.S. Department of Homeland Security. (2016, June). National Disaster Recovery Framework. 2nd ed.