Logo image
Back
Resiliency of Power Grid Infrastructure Under Extreme Hazards - Observations and Lessons Learned from Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico
Book chapter

Resiliency of Power Grid Infrastructure Under Extreme Hazards - Observations and Lessons Learned from Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico

Shen-En Chen, Miguel A. Pando, Agustín A. Irizarry, Yamilka Baez-Rivera, Wenwu Tang and Yenki Ng
Advanced Geotechnical and Structural Engineering in the Design and Performance of Sustainable Civil Infrastructures, pp 1-17
11 Jul 2021
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-80155-7_1

Abstract

Hurricane Maria Physical resilience Power grid Puerto Rico
On the morning of Wednesday, September 20, 2017, Hurricane Maria made landfall near the southeastern town of Yabucoa, Puerto Rico (PR), as a powerful Category 4 storm on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane wind scale. Hurricane Maria moved diagonally across the island with sustained winds of 249 km/h and is considered the worst storm to hit PR in over 80 years. Hurricane Maria arrived only two weeks after Hurricane Irma; this prior hurricane had passed just north of the island, ensuing heavy rainfall throughout the island, and leaving about one million residents without power. The scale of Hurricane Maria’s destruction was even more devastating, causing as much as $95 billion in damages. Electricity was cut off for 100% of the island, and most residents suffered from limited access to clean water and food. Puerto Rico’s power outage was, by far, the most severe in United States history in terms of total customer-hours lost. This paper describes the event timeline and summarizes reconnaissance observations by the authors as part of an NSF RAPID project to document the infrastructure damages of the power grid in PR. Extreme natural disasters associated with climate change have increased in frequency in recent years, resulting in significant impacts on local economies and drastic increases in global disaster expenditures. Many of these climate events, including wind storms, ice storms, hurricanes, floods, landslides, and tornadoes, are directly affecting the people, infrastructure, economies, and the natural environment. A storm effect correlation analysis was performed on a 10 km × 10 km grid on the island and the most damaging storm effect is identified. The field information and data presented in this paper provide insight to help the engineering community adapt and improve design and construction practices to improve resiliency of our infrastructure and lifelines.

Metrics

24 Record Views
2 citations in Scopus

Details

Logo image