The risk of the electrical power grid due to natural hazards and recovery challenge following disasters and record floods: What next?

The electrical power grid is one of the most critical infrastructures (CIs) in many developed and developing countries and must be planned, operated, maintained, and managed to ensure reliable, secure, and resilient service supply. Being coupled to the transport network, water distribution, Internet, food, etc., all are highly mutually dependent, including through information and communication technologies (the so-called cyber-based systems). We examine the threats to the electrical CIs of natural and man-made disasters that cause loss of power systems for several weeks over vast urban or statewide areas, affect many millions, and result in intersystems cascading failures. Key future questions include: how high and reliable to build flooding defenses; how to enhance backup power systems for all CI fail-safe interconnections; and establishing increased investment. What next must and can only be better systems, improved reliability, more effective emergency management, through decision-making guided by quantified risk and resilience of coupled CI. What we have learned from past real events discussed in this chapter has national as well as systems engineering implications.