Ports comprise many different stakeholders, both public and private. Port authorities also may have jurisdiction over some or all of the geographical area of a port. The port authority can be an agency of the state, county, or city in which the port is located. In most ports in North America, the actual task of loading and unloading goods is carried out by private operators who lease space or equipment from the port authority. (In some ports, the port authority also manages some of these stevedoring activities.) The percentage of the port area over which the port authority has jurisdiction, and the level of involvement of the port authority in the port’s operations, is different from port to port. This variability in port authority jurisdiction and operational involvement has direct consequences for portwide disaster preparedness. Even though a port authority may have a thorough disaster plan in place, that plan may not be binding on any of the private operators in the port. The stakeholders involved at any given port can vary but, in general, they include port authorities, private-sector operators doing business within the port, government agencies, and information-sharing forums. Table 1 summarizes these basic participants and their roles. These various stakeholders interact in a variety of ways. The port authority provides a limited governance structure for the port. Many port authorities lease piers, or “terminals,” and equipment to stevedoring companies and shipping lines that are responsible for the actual loading and transport of cargo. Some port authorities also operate cargo terminals alongside the private operators. Figure 3 depicts the main elements of a typical port. Individual ports may not include all of these elements, or may include some not depicted here. Several federal agencies provide support to ports in natural disaster planning, response, and recovery (see table 2). These agencies have different missions that relate to port operations, including natural disaster planning and response. For example, the Coast Guard is the agency responsible for most federal oversight related to portwide safety and security. It plays the primary role in coordinating efforts for homeland security efforts. FEMA plays a role in homeland security planning and also administers several assistance programs for disaster preparation and recovery. The Maritime Administration plays a general role in coordinating efforts to strengthen the maritime system and also has the ability to provide maritime assets that could be used to support homeland security interests. These vessels are part of the country’s National Defense Ready Reserve Fleet, including ships and barges, which could be used for housing, power generation, or the movement of water and other supplies. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, prompted additional federal efforts to address a broad spectrum of emergencies. The Homeland Security Act of 2002 required DHS to develop a comprehensive National Incident Management System (NIMS). NIMS is intended to provide a consistent framework for incident management at all jurisdictional levels regardless of the cause, size, or complexity of the situation and to define the roles and responsibilities of federal, state, and local governments, and various first responder disciplines at each level during an emergency event. To manage all major incidents, NIMS has a standard incident management system, called the Incident Command System, with five functional areas—command, operations, planning, logistics, and finance and administration. NIMS also prescribes interoperable communications systems and preparedness before an incident happens, including planning, training, and exercises. In December 2004, DHS issued the National Response Plan (NRP), intended to be an all-discipline, all-hazards plan establishing a single, comprehensive framework for the management of domestic incidents where federal involvement is necessary. The NRP includes planning assumptions, roles and responsibilities, concept of operations, and incident management actions. The NRP also includes a Catastrophic Incident Annex, which provides an accelerated, proactive national response to a “catastrophic incident,” defined as any natural or man-made incident, including terrorism, resulting in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the population, infrastructure, environment, economy, national morale, or government functions. Developing the capabilities needed to deal with large-scale disasters is part of an overall national preparedness effort that should integrate and define what needs to be done, where, based on what standards, how it should be done, and how well it should be done. Along with the NRP and NIMS, DHS has developed the National Preparedness Goal. Considered as a group, these three documents are intended to guide investments in emergency preparedness and response capabilities. The NRP describes what needs to be done in response to an emergency incident, either natural or man-made, the NIMS describes how to manage what needs to be done, and the National Preparedness Goal describes how well it should be done. The National Preparedness Goal is particularly useful for determining what capabilities are needed, especially for a catastrophic disaster. The interim goal addresses both natural disasters and terrorist attacks. It defines both the 37 major capabilities that first responders should possess to prevent, protect from, respond to, and recover from disaster incidents and the most critical tasks associated with these capabilities. An inability to effectively perform these critical tasks would, by definition, have a detrimental impact on effective protection, prevention, response, and recovery capabilities. The Maritime Infrastructure Recovery Plan (MIRP), released by DHS in April 2006, applies these disaster preparedness documents to the maritime sector. The MIRP is intended to facilitate the restoration of maritime commerce after a terrorist attack or natural disaster and reflects the disaster management framework outlined in the National Response Plan. The MIRP addresses issues that should be considered by ports when planning for natural disasters. However, it does not set forth particular actions that should be taken at the port level, leaving those determinations to be made by the port operators themselves. The 9/11 Commission pointed out that no amount of money or effort can fully protect against every type of threat. As a result, what is needed is an approach that considers the relative risks these various threats pose and determines how best to use limited resources to prevent threats, where possible, and to respond effectively if they occur. While the Homeland Security Act of 2002 and Homeland Security Presidential Directive 7 call for the use of risk management in homeland security, little specific federal guidance or direction exists as to how risk management should be implemented. In previous work examining risk management efforts for homeland security and other functions, we developed a framework summarizing the findings of industry experts and best practices. This framework, shown in figure 4, divides risk management into five major phases: (1) setting strategic goals and objectives, and determining constraints; (2) assessing the risks; (3) evaluating alternatives for addressing these risks; (4) selecting the appropriate alternatives; and (5) implementing the alternatives and monitoring the progress made and results achieved. Recent natural disasters—particularly Hurricanes Katrina, Wilma, and Rita in 2005—challenged affected ports on several fronts, according to port authority officials. Since 1998, hurricanes have damaged buildings, cranes, and other equipment owned by seven of the port authorities we interviewed. Ports also reported damage to utility systems and experienced delays in water, sewer, and power restoration. Port authorities cited clearing waterways and debris removal as another difficulty. In the case of Hurricane Katrina, some ports, such as Gulfport and New Orleans, have not yet returned or took about 6 months to return to predisaster operational levels, respectively. Separate from the physical impact of the disasters, challenges occurred with personnel, communications and coordination issues and, according to port authority officials, these challenges proved more difficult than anticipated. In some cases, personnel had evacuated the area, and port officials were unsure when staff would be able to return to work. Given that many phone lines were down, there were delays in restoring phone service and, in most cases, ports did not have communications alternatives in place. Some port authorities also reported difficulties in working with local, state, and federal entities during the recovery process, including coordinating re- entry to the port of port personnel and filing for FEMA disaster recovery assistance. Even though most ports anticipated and had plans in place to mitigate infrastructure damage from natural disasters, over half of the port authorities we contacted reported that the disasters created infrastructure challenges. Twelve of the 17 ports we reviewed had experienced a hurricane or earthquake since 1998, and among those 12 port authorities, 7 reported challenges in restoring infrastructure (see fig.2). While we were unable to review a complete list of disaster assistance estimates, some port authorities were able to provide specific dollar amounts for repair damage to buildings, cranes, or other equipment. For instance, the Port of Miami reported spending more than $6 million on repairs as a result of Hurricanes Katrina, Wilma, and Rita, including damage to facilities, signage, sea wall and storm drainage system. Likewise, The Port of Houston reported spending $200,000 for facility repairs following Hurricane Rita. Ports were still faced with these repair costs even though a majority of the port plans we reviewed included infrastructure damage mitigation. As a way to work around the damaged structures, ports also utilized temporary trailers for administrative and operational functions. For example, this occurred at the Port of Port Arthur, where the strategy of reserving backup equipment with appropriate vendors was included in that port’s Hurricane Readiness Plan. Besides the repair costs involved, another indication of the significance of damage to infrastructure was the effect on port operations. In several cases, tenants left the port and moved elsewhere. For example, Port of New Orleans officials said that because they are unsure if departed tenants at the port will return, they have been reluctant to replace three severely damaged container cranes. Operations have been even more curtailed at the Port of Gulfport, also because of Hurricane Katrina. Port authority officials report that they have been able to repair only 3 of their 12 warehouses, which limited their ability to accommodate storage for some of their major operators.