According to the Department of Homeland Security, Critical Infrastructure could be loosely defined as systems vital to a country that their destruction or incapacities would have devastating effects on the economy, public health, national security, or all the combinations thereof ( Yusta et al., 2010) . Even though the infrastructure might be similar in all countries due to life's basic requirements, the United States categorizes the infrastructure into 16 sectors, including energy, transport, and public health sectors. In North Carolina and other states within the country, the interdependence between these structures is evident, and a natural calamity or terrorist attack would render these services unavailable to the public. In 1998 failure of telecommunication satellite Galaxy 4, for example, led to a prolonged power crisis in California, leading to disruptions in other infrastructures such as rail lines. Electric power disruptions in California in 2001 are another example of a disaster that affected other sectors due to the interconnected nature of infrastructure. The power supply failure affected refinery operations, natural gas production, and even transportation of jet fuel in pipelines to other states. The disruption stagnated other critical industries leading to loss of billions of dollars and productivity. The interconnectedness and mutual dependence of critical infrastructures make it more vulnerable to terrorist attacks and other kinds of interruptions, indirectly affecting large geographical regions and sending cascading effects throughout the country and global economy. Therefore, local and national governments should formulate and implement policies to strengthen and maintain critical infrastructure functioning for a more sustainable economy.
In Jacksonville, North Carolina, and other states within the country, disasters are bound to happen, and every citizen and the local government should be prepared to manage this crisis ( Merabti et al., 2010) . Any disaster management activity aims to reduce the degree to which the citizens' lives are worsened by the disaster relative to its conditions. Even though the state might be prepared for any kind of disaster, the nature of disasters in most cases makes it hard for the ideals of mitigating its impact to be attained. First, disasters are large and affect large population areas, which directly impact o. As a result, disasters evoke an immediate sense of urgency and limits human movement within the location. They are sometimes also uncertain with respect to their occurrence and outcomes. Lastly, the dynamic nature of disasters makes it difficult for response teams to use old techniques to mitigate current challenges. Therefore, important questions need to be asked regarding reducing the impact caused by the disasters and increasing resilience.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Mitigation is the core of any emergency management plan and is an ongoing effort to reduce the impact of hazards on individuals and even property. According to the department of homeland security, mitigation is a continuous sustainable action that eliminates the longterm risk of property and individuals from natural hazards and their impacts. To increase the resilience to natural disasters, Jacksonville, North Carolina, started the construction of the city's first facility, which will hold several public transport sectors and, at the same time, is resistant to hurricanes. The 14,000 square foot station located at Thompson Street will be the United Transit System and Jacksonville's railroads' hub. The hub will be used to monitor all the transportation systems within the state, which will be used as an emergency response center during the occurrence of any catastrophic events.
According to data collected by the Energy Information Administration in 2019, North Carolina was ranked the second in total installed solar power stations, generating over 4,700 megawatts ( Aradau, 2010) . The state has over 110 private and public fueling stations that supply diesel and contribute to about one-seventh of its total biofuel. The state also has electrical power stations powered by nuclear energy and provides over 32 percent of the in-state electricity. With such kinds of infrastructure together with over 2,000 kilometers of the rail line, the local government should have infrastructure that protects such kinds of systems ( Bessani et al., 2010) . In case of a terrorist attack or any kind of natural calamity striking a power plant, state activities will be crippled. The state has an evacuation system called 'Know Your Zone,' which protects individuals during hurricanes and tropical storms. When storms approach, the local officials usually determine the most at-risk zones and should be evacuated. Higher risk zones are normally labeled Zone A, followed by Zone B, etc. The tiered approach is adopted to help reduce traffic during the evacuation period.
In conclusion, critical infrastructure plays a critical role in supporting modern communities and should be protected for continuous operations, safety, reliability, and performance. Protection of critical systems, whether from natural calamities or manmade terrorist events, should be the government's priority to increase such communities' sustainability during these events. Even though the protection of each system might be costly, points of conjuncture should be highly prioritized. These points, such as the state of the art facility in Thompson street, Jacksonville in North Carolina, should be physically protected from intrusion and cyber-attacks. In the event of a disaster occurrence on such facilities, the ripple effect will be felt on other systems such as nuclear plants, railroads, and water systems critical for the survival of residents.
References
Aradau, C. (2010). A security that matters: Critical infrastructure and objects of protection. Security Dialogue , 41 (5), 491-514.
Bessani, A. N., Sousa, P., Correia, M., Neves, N. F., & Verissimo, P. (2008). The CRUCIAL way of critical infrastructure protection. IEEE Security & Privacy , 6 (6), 44-51.
Merabti, M., Kennedy, M., & Hurst, W. (2011, March). Critical infrastructure protection: A 21 st century challenges. In 2011 International Conference on Communications and Information Technology (ICCIT) (pp. 1-6). IEEE.
Yusta, J. M., Correa, G. J., & Lacal-Arántegui, R. (2011). Methodologies and applications for critical infrastructure protection: State-of-the-art. Energy Policy , 39 (10), 6100-6119
Appendix
