Mutual Assistance
Helping move people, equipment, information, and support where they are needed most.
Major power outages can require utilities to move hundreds or thousands of personnel, vehicles, contractors, and support resources across multiple states—or across the U.S.–Canada border. AHC and the Sensitive Information Sharing Environment (SISE) help connect those movements to the broader operational environment surrounding them.
What It Is
Mutual Assistance Is More Than Moving Trucks
Mutual assistance is the process through which utilities provide personnel, equipment, contractors, and other resources to help another utility prepare for, respond to, or recover from a major power outage. Every large activation creates a complex information and coordination challenge.
Resource Movement
Crews, fleets, equipment, contractors, and specialty resources moving across jurisdictions.
Staging & Support
Hotels, meals, fuel, staging sites, base camps, and other logistical requirements.
Requirements
Emergency declarations, waivers, permits, credentials, border procedures, and regulatory actions.
Coordination
Utilities, contractors, government agencies, public safety, transportation, and cross-sector partners.
The Operational Challenge
The Information Exists. Finding the Right Information Fast Is the Problem.
During a major activation, critical information may be spread across dozens of government websites, transportation systems, emergency management agencies, utilities, trade associations, vendors, and operational partners.
Operational Model
Supporting the Entire Mutual Assistance Lifecycle
The same information environment can support planning before an incident, live operations during an activation, and safe demobilization afterward.
Prepare
Identify likely routes, contacts, state requirements, border procedures, staging considerations, and logistical dependencies.
Activate
Build the operating picture around the actual origin, destination, timing, and resource movement.
Move
Monitor transportation conditions, hazards, declarations, waivers, and disruptions along the corridor.
Stage & Support
Understand lodging, fuel, food, staging capacity, infrastructure, and support conditions.
Respond
Identify changing conditions affecting restoration operations, logistics, crews, and critical dependencies.
Demobilize
Support safe resource movement home while monitoring route, regulatory, and operational changes.
Operational Intelligence Portfolio
Mission-Specific Capabilities Supporting Mutual Assistance
AHC and SISE are developing specialized operational intelligence capabilities that address different parts of the mutual-assistance operating picture.
RouteWatch — Mutual Assistance
Provides operational intelligence surrounding the movement of mutual-assistance resources.
- Route conditions and closures
- Weather and hazard impacts
- Movement timing and corridor issues
- Fuel, lodging, and staging considerations
- State coordination contacts
- Potential movement conflicts
WaiverWatch
Identifies emergency declarations, regulatory relief, transportation waivers, hours-of-service changes, fuel-related actions, and other measures affecting emergency response operations.
Regulatory IntelligenceStateWatch
Provides state and local government operational information affecting private-sector response and recovery.
- Emergency management actions
- Transportation and reentry conditions
- Curfews and local restrictions
- Infrastructure and public-safety updates
ThreatWatch
Identifies current and emerging threats and their potential operational impacts across infrastructure sectors.
- Natural hazards
- Transportation and utility disruptions
- Cybersecurity and physical security
- Supply-chain and public-health concerns
State & Cross-Sector Coordination
Connecting Resource Movement to the People Who Can Help
Moving resources across multiple states can require coordination with government, transportation, public safety, fuel, logistics, lodging, communications, and other critical partners.
State Coordination Contacts
RouteWatch can identify appropriate State Private Sector Liaison contacts along a movement corridor, including available name, agency, role, email, office phone, and mobile contact information.
Cross-Sector Support
AHC's operating network connects utility movement with transportation, fuel, hotels, food, communications, public safety, emergency management, healthcare, logistics, water, and regulatory partners.
From Information to Coordination
Knowing that a problem exists is valuable. Knowing who may be positioned to validate, coordinate, or help address that problem is even more valuable.
U.S.–Canada Mutual Assistance
Supporting Cross-Border Resource Movement
Mutual-assistance resources moving between Canada and the United States can face additional customs, immigration, documentation, equipment, vehicle, and government coordination requirements.
Required Documents
Help identify documents, forms, credentials, and supporting materials needed for movement.
Entry & Submission Path
Clarify the appropriate port of entry, process, submission steps, and agency pathway.
Correct Contacts
Provide relevant government and coordination contacts based on the route and crossing location.
Confidence in the Information
Source-First. Verification-First.
Operational decisions require confidence in the information being used. AHC capabilities emphasize direct links to authoritative sources whenever possible and clearly distinguish verified information from developing conditions or information requiring confirmation.
Public Operational Information
- Route status
- General origin and destination
- Departure timing and ETA windows
- Transportation conditions
- Declarations and waivers
- General operational impacts
- Confidence levels
Authorized Operational Information
- Utility or contractor names
- Personnel and vehicle counts
- Resource composition
- Detailed staging information
- Movement details
- Other operationally sensitive information
Who Benefits
Built for the Mutual Assistance Community
The information environment is designed to support the organizations and functional teams involved before, during, and after an activation.
Built With the People Who Do the Work
Technology + Operational Intelligence + Trusted Relationships
These capabilities are being developed through collaboration among public- and private-sector organizations that support emergency response, infrastructure resilience, and mutual assistance.
All Hazards Consortium
Provides the cross-sector coordination framework, operating relationships, and mission focus that connect technology to real-world response needs.
Multi-State Fleet Response Working Group
Brings together stakeholders focused on fleet movement, logistics, regulatory issues, and multi-state resource coordination.
State Private Sector Liaison Working Group
Strengthens state-by-state public-private coordination and provides pathways for issue awareness, validation, and escalation.
SISE Working Group
Supports trusted information sharing and collaborative development of operational intelligence capabilities for resilience and response.
Blue-Sky and Dark-Sky Value
Use the same environment to pre-plan routes, identify contacts, understand requirements, exercise plans, and build relationships before an incident—and then monitor changing conditions, waivers, route impacts, support needs, and coordination issues during activation.
Join the SISE Community
Connect with trusted public- and private-sector partners working to improve operational information sharing, coordination, and resilience before, during, and after major incidents.
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