Preparedness Consulting Services, LLC

09/02/2026

The month of September is starting, and while across the professional community it is well known as , across an even more important community – our home community – is a reminder of the impacts of .

Recent current events wrap up in the area, such as the Finance Ministers Meeting with many of the world's largest economies gathering in – widely known as a chosen spot to emphasize the dramatic recovery needs STILL required across Western NC and Eastern TN. The healing continues, and scars will ALWAYS remain. We encourage those leaders such as from the The U.S. Department of the Treasury and beyond to continue giving all the support possible to our region.

As PCS continues to embark on its nationwide pursuit of infrastructure security and community preparedness, our team will always remain alongside our community’s recovery to continue the herculean efforts our executed immediately after the storm.

Throughout this month we will continue to share more memories as we approach the two-year anniversary of the storm, and continued resources available for those still recovering.

Stay blessed, stay safe, and stay ready!

08/30/2026

It’s a . Those of us efforting Infrastructure Security for years have known this, and the other day Executive Order 14420 was published making strides at ensuring our country’s energy sector – and very national survival dependent on it. No, that is not dramatic to say, but rather factual.

For the past few days, the PCS team has been carefully reviewing and discussing this EO to best understand how it will help, and what gaps remain. Here is an initial and topical level look at it – and remember, ALL Sectors are interdependent and this EO effects all 16 areas and not just the .

What are you doing to offset this risk? In your Critical Infrastructure organization, at work, and at home – all require proactive action, now, because Too Late WILL come.

And the even harder question, if preparation fails or lacks both for you AND the collective, and the grid fails, what are you planning or resourced to do? This should keep us all up at night.

08/30/2026

ALL-HAZARDS: Why does it matter for Critical Infrastructure security, and why does PCS insist on it?

The month of August saw some dramatic examples, with unusually impacting numerous CI sectors, including the .

August incidents such as in , where a powerful derecho with 99 mph winds struck affecting over 300,000 users for weeks on end. In TN/MS and where a storm caused nearly 1/3 of Memphis outage for days. In with a major transmission failure cut power to over 30,000 customers, and just yesterday in where heavy storms knocked out power for more than 100,000 people at peak levels.

Each of these reduced the capacity of the full infrastructure network, greatly increasing the Physical Threat vulnerability for cascade failures, and many including Gary and Memphis saw direct violence against efforts and significant frustrations across customers.

In Memphis with alone there is now a projected cost to consumers and citizens of EIGHTEEN MILLION DOLLARS. An All-Hazards centric Security & Preparedness approach would not have eliminated this cost and the outage, but it would have significantly reduced it – creating noteworthy ROI, but instead now the full bill must be swallowed.

Leaders took an assumed Risk, and the gamble didn’t pay off. Are you gambling right now? All Infrastructure entities, all sixteen sectors, need to be more proactive. It isn’t too late, YET.

08/23/2026

Last night a highly unusual event struck western and the area, resulting in an equally unusually high rate of . The rate at which changing weather patterns impact operations is increasing, and as occur they amplify the threats from .

PCS teams are currently on the ground in Memphis today with two goals (1) study the points of grid failure to understand how the storms caused such a wide and fast cascade of outages, and (2) observe changes in the grid security environment – especially in a high crime rate dense-urban area where as summer temperatures fast rise through the day will see increased sociocultural discontent.

With still approximately 22% of the customers out of power, only improved slightly from 26% over 12hrs ago, we do wish the utmost safety for the Memphis Light, Gas & Water (MLGW), Sevier County Utility District, West Memphis Utilities, and their partnered personnel efforting rapid . We encourage citizens to also follow the City of Memphis Office of Emergency Management (OEM) for public safety guidelines.

These are exactly the converging events that PCS’ unique program provides Preparedness for – if you reach out to us before it is too late. [email protected]. For here in Memphis, a Call to Action: let’s be more prepared for the next time!

A Bow Echo storm system impacted Memphis and Shelby County in the evening hours. These storms can produce severe straight-line winds between 80-100mph, heavy rains and occasional tornados. While we have no confirmation of tornadic activity, we have confirmation of straight-line wind speeds more than 70mph. These winds have wreaked havoc on our electric system impacting more than 25% of MLGW customers.

We are still doing assessment to understand the extent of damage, but from what we know now, our customers should expect this to be a multi-day recovery, with the majority of customers expected to be restored by Thursday evening based on early assessments.

Affected customer should make plans for being without power for multiple days. We will work with local agencies to provide information where assistance can be found for those that need it.

Our immediate priorities are restoring power to hospitals, water treatment, and sewer facilities. Following that we will prioritize circuit restorations that will have the largest number of customers impacted. For the school systems, we will endeavor to have a better assessment on Sunday afternoon about the status of individual schools and when they might expect to be restored. It is fair to say that there will be disruptions to normal operations next week for some number of the schools that have been impacted.

Tonight, we have the MLGW team and tree trimming crews already at work assessing damage and restoring power where they can. They will be joined additional MLGW staff and by more than 30 contractor crews who are headed our way, with more to follow behind them: in short, we have help on the way.

MLGW has an Outage Center on mlgw.com which includes information on reporting and tracking outages as well as a preparedness guide: mlgw.com/StormPrep.

08/20/2026

SHOCKING grid-vulnerability reporting in the open media the last 12-24hrs – for the general public impacted and those 16-sector entities delaying proactive action, this needs to be your wake-up call, and possibly one of your last warnings.

This Instagram summary (credit to SteveRam3) well highlights some of the latest, but here in direct summary: combined physical and cyber threats are converging on infrastructure, they are PROVEN and known with historical precedents, our adversaries ARE openly threatening such actions and have even taken steps to execute them, if the grid does down it WILL be for way more than 18 months, and when it goes down the loss of life and community will be beyond catastrophic.

PCS has been engaged in calls and conferences with the highest authorities even just today to ascertain best ways forward for our infrastructure partners, and with rapid deployments today and in the days ahead to geographic areas of physical-threats concerns.

So, what are you doing? What CAN you do? We are here to help you, and it isn’t just business – we use and connect community concepts and resources to you directly to your vulnerabilities so we can fervently create layered Preparedness and Security. It isn’t too late, but it’s close.

08/19/2026

At there was an outstanding presentation by Secretary Dan Brouillette focusing on how the large overwhelming aspects of today’s energy – and its security – environment have often harsh realities at the small local levels.

To highlight a few of the most salient points from his remarks: Being Small isn’t Protection, Today’s threat environment is picking targets based on reachability [vulnerability] not just breadth of impacts, Everyone’s [mitigation] now was someone’s inconvenient capital [investment] decision a year [+] ago, Focus today on connecting the issue [or need] to where people are – not a disconnected or irrelevant idea.

While there are many more points of criticality, these really stood out to us and spoke also to how we at PCS fight hard to approach the problem set – by translating the large and high impacting threats to the precise organizational need, free from white noise and paralyzing confusion.

Ready for your organization or piece of to get Ready and Secured? Contact us today to get started and to plan out your 2027 before it’s too late – [email protected]

08/18/2026

For our local WNC followers - be in prayer for this local faithful family operation. Today we personally witnessed this heartbreaking event and loss, and while we are thankful that they are all ok we know this is hard. As a fellow faith driven WNC small business, we want to echo our support for them - so follow their page and watch for updates from them on how to best help and support them.

08/15/2026

After finishing up some work in the coastal Carolinas we found some beach art that we love and fully support! As we all work through the continued stress of an insecure world, we encourage everyone to just take a knee this weekend and have a blessed time.

Also, as a Public Announcement – note that our Facebook in particular is being significantly clamped down by Meta due to our being overlay patriotic and religious. IF at any time posts and comms on here completely stop, you know they finally got us. If that happens, go to our webpage (preparewithpcs.com) or our LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/preparedness-consulting-services/) to find info on any new page (of which our backups are already built and ready).

And yes, our answer to the restrictions is to post this picture about Jesus!

08/13/2026

PCS is currently joining in at one of the best conferences we enjoy each year – the Cooperatives Technologies Conference & Expo, , supporting one of favorite niche of client: Our U.S. Electrical Sector . They serve 56% of Americans with their electrical needs, and are pivotal to the existential functioning of our country!

is annually pivotal as technology advances rapidly. Discussing lessons learned and sharing revolutionary capabilities is crucial, especially where they have the crossover with IT/OT and virtual/physical. It is also critical to candidly discuss where advancing tech should AUGMENT the “old ways” and not ELIMINATE them. Analog redundancies remain important also for and for a variety of potential – and this applies to ALL areas of , especially , , and !

08/08/2026

In today’s security environment we must increasingly focus on Active Shooter and sudden direct violent threats from deranged individuals. Just last week PCS was able to join at Charlotte-Mecklenburg Storm Water Services for outstanding training and orientation by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department.

This training, and follow-on individual discussions, with facilitates PCS’ ability to coordinate with existing and security resources to the benefit of our regional and local clients, as well as integrating core concepts from some of the very best and most current training which we are able to then deliver directly to our clients also.

Through today’s increasingly complex threats, it takes ALL stakeholders working together and aggregating resources to create real mitigation. PCS’ process brings this straight to you, on a silver platter.