On the Impacts of Power Outages during Hurricane Sandy—A Resilience‐Based Analysis

Abstract

The dependence on continuous availability of power for day-to-day functioning and sustenance of life is more critical today than ever before. A prolonged loss of power is no longer just an inconvenience, but brings normal life to a standstill. When Hurricane Sandy hit the U.S East Coast in October 2012, many lost their homes and properties due to the flooding and severe winds. However, a significant impact was the power outages to over 8 million customers across 21 states, for days and even weeks. This paper takes a systems view of these power outages from supply and demand sides, from a quantitative resilience perspective. The focus of this study is on the resilience action that enables restoration of the disrupted system. Generic resilience framework and metrics are used as the basis for the resilience analysis; the observations, lessons learnt, and recommendations based on this analysis are expected to improve recovery from large-scale power outages resulting from any disruptive event in future. C⃝ 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Syst Eng 19: 59-75, 2016

Resilience in Complex Systems: An Agent‐Based Approach

“…As these infrastructure networks become more complex, the probability increases that emergent properties will lead to widespread and prolonged service disruptions. In addition, events such as Superstorm Sandy in 2012 [Henry and Ramirez‐Marquez, ], Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and the Northeast US Blackout in 2003 highlight some of the risks posed by natural hazards and internal threats. In spite of these hazards and threats, there is an expectation that infrastructure services such as transportation, water, communications, and electricity are delivered in a consistent and reliable manner.…”

Visual Narrative of the Loss of Energy after Natural Disasters

“…Compared to our work, the most popular labels included in the 95th percentile didn't have enough labels for some categories, such as drink, food, other, and relief, while other, similar categories were shared between their work and ours, such as ad (business category), damage (infrastructure or hazard related), gear (transportation), macro (graphic), and people (people and activities). Something important to note is that no energy category arose from the data, even though hurricane Sandy caused the loss of electricity to more than eight million customers for a few hours, and a whole week for another million people [38].…”

Estimated Time to Restoration of Hurricane Sandy in a Future Climate

“…In this paper, resiliency will mean the ability of the grid to be returned to full function, or no outages remaining. Henry and Ramirez-Marquez [3] state "quick and effective restoration following the damage is key to resilience." The intensity of extreme storms is expected to increase [6], which will lead to more widespread damage requiring extensive repairs.…”

“…Henry and Ramirez-Marquez [3] present a framework of the system during the resilience (or restoration) process. This framework is broken into five zones, each relating to different times during the storm.…”

“…Several weather patterns collided, which increased the strength of Sandy and impacted the course it was on. Unusually warm waters in the Gulf of Mexico strengthened Sandy, the moon was entering a full phase, which resulted in high tides along the East Coast where the storm was travelling, and there was a cold-front overland in New Jersey [3]. Several states saw snowfall as Sandy collided with the cold front.…”