Southwestern’s Response to COVID-19
On March 24, Governor Stitt amended Executive Order 2020-07 requiring "non-essential" or "critical infrastructure" businesses, as defined by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) memorandum (attached) dated March 19, 2020, to close at midnight, March 25. This letter, based on that guidance, is designed to provide clarity that essential employees at our firm are critical to the construction projects they support and be allowed to perform their duties to ensure continuity of functions.
Based on this CISA guidance:
- Southwestern Roofing & Metal, Inc. and Southwestern Restoration & Waterproofing, Inc., a leading commercial construction firm, has been designated as critical infrastructure.
- Key Southwestern associates and the trade partners working with us have been designated as essential workers and provided a copy of this designation.
- The CISA stated individuals "working construction" are included among those "essential critical infrastructure workers".
- Our projects - including healthcare, business, government, commercial, industrial, and residential infrastructure – are considered essential work.
This memo, which is available on the CISA website (https://www.cisa.gov/publication/guidance- essential-critical-infrastructure-workforce), also provides guidance to state and local jurisdictions and the private sector regarding how to manage and continue access and re-entry for essential workers during periods when access restrictions are in effect by public health authorities and other executive branch authorities related to quarantines, social-distancing, isolation, and/or shelter-in-place mandates.
We recognize that State, local, tribal, and territorial governments are ultimately in charge of implementing and executing response activities in communities under their jurisdiction, while the Federal Government is in a supporting role. As State and local communities consider
COVID-19-related restrictions, CISA is offering this list to assist prioritizing activities related to continuity of operations and incident response, including the appropriate movement of critical infrastructure workers within and between jurisdictions.
Accordingly, this list is advisory in nature. It is not, nor should it be considered to be, a federal directive or standard in and of itself.
In addition, these identified sectors and workers are not intended to be the authoritative or exhaustive list of critical infrastructure sectors and functions that should continue during the COVID-19 response. Instead, State and local officials should use their own judgment in using their authorities and issuing implementation directives and guidance. Similarly, critical infrastructure industry partners will use their own judgment, informed by this list, to ensure continued operations of critical infrastructure services and functions. All decisions should appropriately balance public safety while ensuring the continued delivery of critical infrastructure services and functions.
CISA will continue to work with you and our partners in the critical infrastructure community to update this list as the Nation's response to COVID-19 evolves. We also encourage you to submit how you might use this list so that we can develop a repository of use cases for broad sharing across the country.
Should you have questions about this list, please contact CISA at CISA.CAT@cisa.dhs.gov.