SEPTEMBER 2026 NEWSLETTER
National Preparedness Month: Building Preparedness Together
Preparedness is a year-round commitment. This month, CUEA is putting it into action through new resources, exercises, regional meetings, and cross-sector coordination.
A Message from the Executive Director
September is National Emergency Preparedness Month, a fitting area of focus for CUEA, since making California’s lifeline utilities ready to respond together has been our work for almost 75 years, and continues to be our work all year long.
This month, we’re launching a CUEA Preparedness Primer: 10 Essential Readiness Actions for California Utility Organizations. It’s a practical, no-nonsense guide. If the last several years of fires, storms, and cascading outages have taught us anything, it’s that no single utility or sector prepares or recovers alone. We’re backing that up with two new efforts: our Regional Meeting series, so members can build relationships with partners and agencies before a crisis, not during one; and our tabletop seminar series, kicking off this month in Southern California, testing communications and coordination in a low-stakes setting.
Preparedness Month may only last thirty days, but the relationships and readiness we build this September are what carry us through the rest of the year. Thank you for the work you do, every day, to keep California’s critical infrastructure resilient.
Thank you for keeping California’s critical infrastructure resilient.
Dana E. Moore
Executive Director, CUEA
CELEBRATING 75 YEARS OF CUEA
Across the CUEA Network
Emergency Coordination
New Website & Tools
Membership
Exercises and Training
Thank you to everyone who participated!
BUILDING WATER-SECTOR PREPAREDNESS AT CALLEGUAS
With September marking National Emergency Preparedness Month, there’s no better example of what preparedness looks like in practice than the work underway at Calleguas Municipal Water District. Thank you to Calleguas for helping lead the way toward stronger cross-utility preparedness in California’s water sector.
Together with the Ventura County Office of Emergency Services and Ventura County Public Health, Calleguas staff and leadership began an important planning conversation about where the water sector fits within the county’s preparedness and response structure. The group discussed each organization’s roles and responsibilities, identified who else should be at the table, and brainstormed ways to bring the 19 retail water companies Calleguas supports into the conversation.
Statewide Representation
CUEA Represents All Six Lifeline Sectors in Cal OES Infrastructure Systems Discussion
CUEA continued its work as California’s coordinating voice for lifeline utilities, participating in a Cal OES meeting on the Infrastructure Systems / Water and Wastewater capability target. Under CUEA’s formal MOU with Cal OES, and as recognized in the 2024 California State Emergency Plan, CUEA represents electric, water, wastewater, telecommunications, gas, and fuel/pipeline utilities as the single coordinating body managing the Utilities Operations Center (UOC) across CA-ESF 12 (Utilities), ESF-1 (Fuels), ESF-2 (Telecommunications), and ESF-10 (Water/Wastewater).
Because water and wastewater operations depend on power, telecommunications, and fuel to function during a response, CUEA’s participation reflected an integrated, cross-sector view rather than a single-sector one — consistent with the coordinating role the state has asked CUEA to play. The conversation covered planning, organization, equipment, training, and exercises across the utility sectors, along with known capability gaps and the funding landscape supporting them.
This kind of statewide engagement is a direct extension of what Preparedness Month is all about: making sure California’s lifeline utilities are represented, coordinated, and ready before the next emergency arrives.
Explore the Supporting Resources
MEMBER OPPORTUNITY
Help Shape the Municipal Utility Security Benchmark
CUEA Members are invited to participate in a new Municipal Utility Security Benchmark Study led by E Source. CUEA is supporting the E Source team with outreach to make this study and anonymous survey available to our members.
Interested in participating?
Connect with our team to receive more information
The study will examine key areas of corporate security and threat management:
Security governance, organizational structure, and operating models
Security operations centers, dispatch, alarm monitoring, and field response
Threat management, investigations, and assessment processes
REGIONAL MEETINGS
Help Shape CUEA's First Regional Meeting Series
Choose the dates that work best in your area and tell us which topics matter most.
Select Dates
Share Input
2026
Sacramento/
Redding/NorCal
2027
Statewide/Multi-Region
2027
Central Valley/Eastern
2027
Bay Area/ Coastal
2027
San Diego/
Riverside/Imperial
2027
Los Angeles/Orange County
Policy Update
CUEA Engages on Wildfire Resilience Policy
Preparedness isn’t only operational, it also means staying engaged in the policy decisions that shape how utilities prepare for and recover from wildfire. This month, CUEA published its latest Member Legislative Update on wildfire resilience, utility corridors, and the California Wildfire Fund, and submitted formal comments to the California Wildfire & Forest Resilience Task Force on its Draft Wildfire and Landscape Resilience Action Plan (2026–2031), urging that utility resilience be treated as a cross-cutting priority with utilities included in Regional Priority Plans and related funding.
CUEA is also tracking federal wildfire bills affecting utility corridors and vegetation management, along with the California Wildfire Fund’s SB 254 study and the ongoing state legislative discussion on wildfire liability reform, including a public coalition letter raising concerns about limits on public agencies’ cost recovery after utility-caused wildfires. CUEA does not take a position for or against legislation, our role is to provide factual, cross-sector context so members understand what’s moving and why it matters.
As the California Legislature approaches its August 31 end-of-session deadline, CUEA is closely watching SB 742 (Pérez), which would require removal plans for permanently abandoned transmission facilities and establish coordination procedures and liaisons between electrical utilities and local emergency operations centers. The bill passed the Senate and is now pending final Assembly action. A few other utility-related bills CUEA tracked this session did not advance and may resurface in 2027.
Staying informed on legislative developments like these is one more way CUEA and its members build readiness this Preparedness Month and year-round.
Upcoming Events
2026
Critical Lifelines Work Group Meeting
9/15/2026 at 11:00AM-2:00PM
feel free to contact us.
info@cuea.net
2026
Board Meeting
Quarterly Board of Directors Meeting
9/16/2026 at 11:00AM-2:00PM
If you have anything you would like the Board to address, please send inquiries to danamoore@cuea.net
2026
Tabletop Exercise
Earthquake in Bakersfield Scenario
9/21/26 at 10:00AM-12:00PM