PORTLAND, Ore.—An enterprise risk management framework provides significant support for municipalities planning disaster recovery, business continuity and resiliency strategies, according to risk managers and industry observers.

Linking a city's business continuity and resilience planning with ERM is “uncharted territory,” said Matt Hansen, director of risk management for the City and County of San Francisco, during an educational session at the Public Risk Management Assn.'s 32nd Annual Conference in Portland, Ore.

Disasters such as the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York, Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, and the earthquakes in New Zealand and Japan—have been instructive situations for the undertaking, Arrietta Chakos, a Boston-based independent urban resiliency policy consultant, said during the session.

After Hurricane Katrina, weaknesses in the city's mitigation and risk reduction strategies were identified as the disaster surpassed what New Orleans had planned for, Ms. Chakos said.

The disaster on Sept. 11, 2001, in New York revealed that the local government worked effectively across many departments to be prepared and respond quickly, she said.

Most importantly, New York had a strong social response and welcomed community involvement. “Without community involvement, disaster recovery cannot proceed,” Ms. Chakos said.

“We have to plan for more than just a day after the disaster,” Ms. Chakos said, by building internal links with the community.

Mr. Hansen's focus on disaster recovery has increased since the quakes in New Zealand and Japan.

“Earthquakes are a fact of life for us,” he said.

The ERM process links disaster preparedness and response and helps city managers make conscious decisions about how to spend money and resources, said Dorothy Gjerdrum, executive director in Arthur J. Gallagher & Co.'s public entity and scholastic division in St. Paul, Minn., during the session.

ERM merges disaster remedies that often are disconnected, such as emergency response and disaster recovery teams, the panelists said.

ERM “gives us a shot at operationalizing the process of managing risks,” Ms. Gjerdrum said. “We can't think through every eventuality.” But ERM assists in prioritizing risks that are identified and track massive amounts of data to best respond when a disaster occurs, she said.

But one of the key aspects of linking ERM to a city's disaster planning is that it “helps you work through the communications process,” Ms. Gjerdrum said.

For effective community involvement to take place, and for interdepartmental buy-in, “continuous and consistent communication is very important,” Mr. Hansen said.

Discussions with community partners, such as mobile phone providers, telephone companies and utility companies, need to happen often and before and after an event to decide how each operation fits together during a crisis, he said.

“ERM will not succeed with a top-down mandate,” Ms. Gjerdrum said. Municipalities need to build incrementally. “Eventually, it's all going to get hooked up.”

Driving numerous diverse municipal departments to work collectively before, during and after a disaster is challenging, Mr. Hansen said.

“Implementing ERM gradually is an understatement,” he said.

The application of ERM to disaster recovery, business interruption and resiliency has culminated to achieve objectives with the city's ResilientSF initiative, Mr. Hansen said.

ResilientSF's mission “advances San Francisco's overall resilience by providing a framework that coordinates existing programs and plans, as well as creates new initiatives, tools and resources that increase the capacity of individuals, organizations and communities to participate in collective problem-solving,” according to the ResilientSF website.