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Understanding the societal implications of critical infrastructure failures
Date
2025
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
Society is only as resilient as the infrastructure it relies on, and when that infrastructure fails, the results can be catastrophic. These infrastructure systems are essential to community functioning; when they fail, communities experience disruptions and must utilize adaptive behaviors to enhance their resilience. Due to the anticipated increase in these failures from extreme temperatures and natural hazards, research should focus on identifying who is likely to experience longer interruptions and understanding how society prepares for and adapts to these events. This dissertation answers three research questions: (1) Who is more likely to experience more frequent and prolonged power outages? (2) How does urban/rural location influence someone’s power outage experience? (3) How are local organizations and governments preparing for a prolonged water outage? ☐ Three analyses addressed the first two questions, each with a distinct scale, unit of analysis, metric, geographic area, and set of initiating hazard events. The first was a household-level survey conducted in parts of New York State and North Carolina, which asked about outage experiences during a December 2022 winter storm. The second described outages in terms of the number of customers that lost power at the county level for six states during the same storm period, using data from PowerOutage.US (POUS). The third analysis relied on multiple grid reliability metrics from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) for counties across the entire United States from 2013 to 2020. The results indicated that while demographic groups experiencing greater negative hazard impacts had longer outages, they did not necessarily experience more frequent and longer outages. The community type was not as strongly associated as hypothesized, as neither outage-related variable — experiencing an outage and outage duration — had sufficient evidence to support the existence of a significant difference between community types. However, there were significant differences by community type with four adaptation options. ☐ Answering the third research question employed a qualitative approach, utilizing semi-structured interviews with local governments and organizations in the western United States. These interviews asked participants involved with the organizations’ operations if they had experienced a water outage, how they managed it, and what they would do during a hypothetical prolonged water outage scenario. The interview findings revealed that local governments and organizations struggle to conceptualize which adaptations would be effective for them. Part of this difficulty stems from a lack of preparation and insufficient forethought about how these events could impact their organizations, as well as a lack of experience; the longest period that any organization went without water was six hours. ☐ The findings from this research suggest that using characteristics commonly associated with greater natural hazard impacts does not necessarily translate to longer and more frequent outages. Future research should consider using context-specific variables related to the study location to better understand the factors associated with people experiencing more intense power outages. Additionally, having outage data from providers is essential for further analyses; outage data are not publicly available. Therefore, providers have a duty to assist customers by conducting outreach in areas prone to experiencing more intense power outages.
Description
"At the request of the author or degree granting institution, this graduate work is not available to view or purchase until July 29 2027."--ProQuest abstract/details page.
Keywords
Critical infrastructure failures, Power outage, Social vulnerability, Societal resilience, Water outage