Business continuity and disaster management for industrial installations

Presidential Policy Directive 8 (PPD-8) was signed by the President of the United States on March 30, 2011. It deals with the subject of developing a National Preparedness System for security and resiliency for businesses to endure a disaster or catastrophe. These disasters can be caused by anything from natural disasters to terrorism. The overall purpose of this directive is for the Dept. of Homeland Security to help administer a program within the U.S. to analyze, mitigate, and recover from a disaster. Any downtime to a major petrochemical plant or refinery can have an enormous impact on the national economy. Recommendations are provided on how to perform risk assessments in general, how to perform a risk assessment of a petrochemical industry power system, how to develop an effective preventative program, and how to recover quickly from a disaster. Benefits to being well prepared are also addressed in this paper.