USVI delegate attends local Homeland Security council meeting

Rep. Donna Christiansen 

Wednesday, August 17, 2005

CHARLOTTE AMALIE, USVI: The US Virgin Islands Delegate to Congress Donna M. Christensen has said that her attendance of the Virgin Islands Homeland Security Council meeting Tuesday was a great opportunity to see plans that she was aware of on the national level being implemented locally.

“Department of Homeland Security officials presented national plans for the protection of critical infrastructure and our local officials had the opportunity to give their input into the national plan,” said the Delegate. “At the Homeland Security Committee, we have called for a better methodology in determining what the critical infrastructure needs of the country actually are and it was good to see presentations this morning from the Department of Homeland Security that reflected that.”

Christensen said that the National Preparation Planning Process looks at all the things that are needed for localities to be prepared, and it determines each localities stage of development. It also determines the amount of technical assistance needed by each locality and helps each one to develop priorities for development of plans to protect its critical infrastructure. 

Christensen said she heard some frustration from local officials who indicated that they had submitted information to the federal government before without a response and were now being asked to repeat the process again. She urged them to be patient and participate because in several instances the Virgin Islands is way ahead of the federal department in planning.

The delegate said that she was pleased to attend the meeting which included presentations to the Governor’s cabinet and to the Emergency Management Council.

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