The National Infrastructure Simulation and Analysis Center (NISAC), a U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security (DHS) program co-led by Sandia and Los Alamos National Laboratory, completed a two-year examination of potential impacts of pandemic influenza on the nation’s population, critical infrastructures, and economy. This work was directed
by the White House Homeland Security Council. Results indicated that although absenteeism, mortality, infrastructure service impacts, and demand shocks could cause adjustments to the structure of the U.S economy, effective intervention strategies can contain disease spread, reduce the number of deaths and greatly reduce the long-term economic impacts. As a result, DHS was able to mark “complete” its action item under the Implementation Plan for the National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza to map and model critical infrastructure interdependencies across and within sectors to share critical information with sectors and identify national challenges during a pandemic.