This Rapid Response Research Grant (RAPID) project focuses on the Louisiana power outages caused by Hurricane Isaac on August 29, 2012. The hurricane resulted in loss of power to some customers in at least 24 parishes. For New Orleans, the size of the power outage caused by the hurricane is second only to Hurricane Katrina. The power outage and restoration process led to broad, vocal criticism of the two major private power companies serving Louisiana from the public and government officials. The goal of this project is to understand how power restoration speed, power utility actions, and other factors influence the real and perceived impacts to customers, as well as reactions of the public and government officials. In other words, are public and government criticisms of power restoration speed rooted in measurable impacts to customers with increasing outage times? As part of this project, the power outage patterns and the social, economic, and ecological impacts related to them will be identified and documented. Reactions to the power restoration activities and performance from a sampling of customers, emergency managers, and government officials will be documented. Restoration decisions of the two major power companies, as well as the context that might have influenced these decisions will be characterized. Detailed data will be collected from area business with respect to power outage characteristics, impacts, and reactions from the businesses. Project data will be analyzed to explore whether outage time results in a quantifiable difference in business impacts, as well as whether outage patterns effected some types of customers more so than others. Data collection for this project will be done through document compilation, field interviews, direct observation, and phone surveys. The expectation is that findings will show public and political calls for faster or improved restoration is not based on measurable impacts of increasing outage time, but for other reasons that are specific to different type of customers and government functions.
This research will contribute to reducing power outage impacts to businesses, households, and government services. The results of the project will also help to set reasonable, objective guidelines and criteria for restoration performance of power companies. Utility providers and emergency management agencies will benefit from this research through eventual improvement to power restoration practices with respect to both technical performance and public or government relations. Alternatively, consumer strategies can be developed based on results of this work to avoid negative impacts from outages. This work will establish a basis for other researchers to investigate the merits of new tools, policies, and practices for improving community recovery from disasters with widespread power outages.
This study developed a case study of the restoration, impacts, and perceptions related to power outages caused by Hurricane Isaac in Louisiana. Hurricane Isaac had few other impacts besides the power outage, which made it particularly fruitful for a scientific study. Data collected and analyzed for this study included news stories, government reports, a survey of over 150 businesses, and in-depth interviews with public officials, emergency managers, and business representatives in Jefferson, Plaquemines, St. John the Baptist, and Orleans parishes. The hurricane was only a Category 1, but sustained winds greater than 30mph lasted for approximately 56 hours. This is twice as long as what has been experienced with other hurricanes in the state. This resulted in a roughly two and a half day delay before winds died down enough for power companies to legally send their work crews up in buckets to do repairs. In Louisiana, Hurricane Isaac left nearly 900,000 (43%) customers without power. This number is comparable to the power outages in Louisiana resulting from Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Gustav. In some locations, customers were without power for 10 days after Isaac. The power companies in the study area restored over 90% of customers within five days once work crews could begin work. A common industry benchmark for restoration is 70 percent of customers within five to seven days. Three themes about the impacts of the power outage emerged: transportation impacts, business impacts, and health care impacts. Transportation was mentioned as the most significant infrastructure impact. There was significant traffic congestion during the power outage with trips taking three to four times longer than normal. There was very limited access to gasoline during the power outage. Few gas stations had backup generators. While many interviewees brought up issues surrounding business impacts and operations, most felt that the power outage had little to moderate impact to businesses overall. They also said they did not expect any long-term impacts to businesses even though power was out for several days. These opinions were clearly supported by survey responses from businesses. Few assisted living facilities had generators. Of nursing homes with backup generators, generators were often inadequate for operating air conditioning systems. Once generators were obtained, lack of fuel became a problem. The power restoration process led to vocal criticism of the two power companies in the study area within the media and from government officials. Many residents complained about seeing repair trucks sitting idle. Poor communication from the power companies was mentioned often in interviews. The public’s different perceptions of the two power companies before the hurricane seemed to predict to their perception of power restoration performance. Survey participants rated the performance of one company lower than the other. The survey found that the power company served of the business was the biggest factor on whether speed of power restoration was given a low rating. The next biggest factor was whether respondents saw idle repair trucks. These two factors were more significant than the number of days businesses were without electricity or the amount of revenue lost as a result of the power outage. The power companies in the study area experienced several challenges with Hurricane Isaac restoration. Perhaps the most significant was the delay to their ability to start restoring electricity. The power companies and the Louisiana public had never experienced such a situation. Evacuation for Hurricane Isaac was uncommon due to the storm’s small size. The power companies were not accustomed to having the public around during the restoration process. The presence of the public added to the traffic congestion, slowing damage assessment and mobilization in some instances. Even with the challenges, one power company reported that the restoration was their fastest and safest restoration to date for a storm of this size. However, the restoration time was calculated based on when work crews could start repairs, while customers experienced the restoration as both the time before crews could begin work and how long it took to restore power. A very clear outcome of this case study is how critically important communications between power companies and their customers are before, during, and after power outages. While one might expect that factors like the number of days without power or revenue lost would be of most concern to customers, this study suggests that their perception of the company is the biggest factor. Knowledge gained from this study can help power companies and customers build mutual understandings for dealing with the certainty of future power outages.
