Hardening critical infrastructure: Lessons from Florida


Posted on November 4, 2011  /  0 Comments

Done for Florida’s electricity utilities, but applicable to other infrastructure as well. A short summary by Mark Jamison, but I assume a longer report exists.

In the aftermath of the 2004-2005 hurricane season, when eight named storms caused a total of $15.5 million in customer losses from power outages, Florida embarked on a comprehensive reform preparing electric utilities for hurricanes. This effort included coordinated research through PURC on electric infrastructure and storm damage.

This research – funded by Florida’s utilities and done in collaboration with them – included an in-depth look at the economics of hardening the state’s electric system. A computer model developed for that purpose helps analyze the costs and benefits of undergrounding and other forms of hardening at a micro level. The research also included the deployment of an extensive network of weather monitoring devices to gather storm data and a companion software system for mapping the weather data to infrastructure damage.

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