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<br />Preparedness Grants Manual <br />SAFECOM Guidance during planning, development, and implementation of emergency <br />communications projects and in conjunction with other planning documents (e.g., SCIPs). <br />Specifically, Appendix D of the SAFECOM Guidance contains compliance instructions for FEMA grant <br />recipients. <br />Emergency communications investments also will be reviewed jointly by FEMA and CISA to verify <br />compliance with SAFECOM Guidance. FEMA will coordinate directly with the recipient on any <br />compliance concerns and will provide TA as necessary to help ensure full compliance. <br />4.9.Resilient Communications Guidance <br />The risk imposed by the reliance on communication systems by government and the private sector <br />can be reduced by understanding dependencies, analyzing effects, and taking action. Entities <br />planning to use preparedness grant funding for communications investments are encouraged to <br />take a Whole Community Approach and work with state emergency management agencies, SWICs, <br />SIGBs, and appropriate stakeholders at the regional and SLTT levels to: <br />. <br />. <br />Plan communication around the whole community to meet everyone’s needs. <br />Establish robust, resilient, reliable, and interoperable communications capabilities. Account for <br />the mission impact of communication system disruptions in your planning; <br />. <br />. <br />Ensure mission-related communications (voice, video, data, and network security requirements) <br />are adequately planned for and understood. It is important to maintain current documentation of <br />your communication systems architecture and perform regular audits. Your ability to continue <br />operations is dependent on the availability of and access to communications systems with <br />sufficient resiliency, redundancy, and accessibility to perform essential functions and provide <br />critical services during a disruption; <br />Ensure critical communication systems connectivity among key government leadership, internal <br />elements, other supporting organizations, and the public under all conditions. As such, <br />organizations should ensure current copies of vital records, including electronic files and <br />software, are backed-up and maintained off-site; <br />. <br />. <br />Ensure all communications systems/networks are traced from end to end to identify all Single <br />Points of Failure (SPF). In doing so, recipients should work with communication service providers <br />to add redundancy at key critical infrastructure facilities as needed; <br />Ensure key communication systems resiliency through: <br />o <br />o <br />o <br />o <br />o <br />Ensuring availability of backup systems; <br />Ensuring diversity of network element components and routing; <br />Ensuring geographic separation of primary and alternate transmission media; <br />Ensuring availability of back-up power sources; <br />Ensuring availability and access to systems that are not dependent on commercial <br />infrastructure; <br />o Maintaining spares for designated critical communication systems; and <br />26