Hurricane Isaac Power Outage Impacts and Restoration
Publication: Journal of Infrastructure Systems
Volume 22, Issue 1
Abstract
In August 2012, Hurricane Isaac made landfall twice in Louisiana. Cumulatively, over 1 million customers lost electricity as a result of the hurricane, some for more than 10 days. As a disaster, Hurricane Isaac is relatively unique because of the opportunity to largely isolate impacts and decisions directly associated with the electricity outage and restoration from cascading impacts related to direct flood or wind damage. Louisiana emergency managers, business representatives, and public officials were interviewed to develop and analyze a case study of the outage and restoration event. Interviewees were asked about (1) the significant impacts from the outage, (2) what (if any) lasting effects would result from the outage, (3) the relative performance of power restoration, (4) the effectiveness of communication between stakeholders, and (5) factors influencing the public and political perception of restoration performance. Other collected data included content from news media, government documents, press releases, situation reports, and publicly available quantitative data. Results suggest that there were few long-term impacts from the outage, and restoration performance was not unusually slow. Even so, the electricity service provider was the subject of vocal criticism. The findings of the case study highlight the importance of all aspects of communication and awareness raising before, during, and after power outages, as well as further research to facilitate this. The study reinforces the need to improve power continuity using a wide range of technical, political, and organizational strategies. Research and policy development is particularly needed for improving continuity of transportation, health care facilities, and gasoline provision. Understanding of the sociotechnical role of electricity outages within broader disaster contexts can only be improved through further interdisciplinary research.
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Acknowledgments
This work was supported by National Science Foundation Infrastructure Systems Management and Extreme Events Rapid Response Research (RAPID) Award #1313597.
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Information
Published In
Journal of Infrastructure Systems
Volume 22 • Issue 1 • March 2016
Copyright
© 2015 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Dec 16, 2014
Accepted: Jun 9, 2015
Published online: Jul 16, 2015
Discussion open until: Dec 16, 2015
Published in print: Mar 1, 2016
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