Untangling the relationship between power outage and population activity recovery in disasters

Abstract

Despite recognition of the relationship between infrastructure resilience and community recovery, very limited empirical evidence exists regarding the extent to which the disruptions in and restoration of infrastructure services contribute to the speed of community recovery. To address this gap, this study investigates the relationship between community and infrastructure systems in the context of hurricane impacts, focusing on the recovery dynamics of population activity and power infrastructure restoration. Empirical observational data were utilized to analyze the extent of impact, recovery duration, and recovery types of both systems in the aftermath of Hurricane Ida. The study reveals three key findings. First, power outage duration positively correlates with outage extent until a certain impact threshold is reached. Beyond this threshold, restoration time remains relatively stable regardless of outage magnitude. This finding underscores the need to strengthen power infrastructure, particularly in extreme weather conditions, to minimize outage restoration time. Second, power was fully restored in 70% of affected areas before population activity levels normalized. This finding suggests the role infrastructure functionality plays in post-disaster community recovery. Quicker power restoration did not equate to rapid population activity recovery due to other possible factors such as transportation, housing damage, and business interruptions. Finally, if power outages last beyond two weeks, community activity resumes before complete power restoration, indicating adaptability in prolonged outage scenarios. This implies the capacity of communities to adapt to ongoing power outages and continue daily life activities. These findings offer valuable empirical insights into the interaction between human activities and infrastructure systems, such as power outages, during extreme weather events. They also enhance our empirical understanding of how infrastructure resilience influences community recovery. By identifying the critical thresholds for power outage functionality and duration that affect population activity recovery, this study furthers our understanding of how infrastructure performance intertwines with community functioning in extreme weather conditions. Hence, the findings can inform infrastructure operators, emergency managers, and public officials about the significance of resilient infrastructure in life activity recovery of communities when facing extreme weather hazards.

Keywords

Infrastructure resilience / Community recovery / Power outage / Human mobility / Location-based data / Weather hazard

Relevance to resilience

Infrastructure resilience is crucial for community recovery post-disasters, a core focus of Resilient Cities and Structures (RCS). This study's insights into the relationship between power infrastructure restoration and community recovery during Hurricane Ida directly contribute to our understanding of system resilience in natural disasters.

A positive correlation between outage duration and impact extent up to a threshold, after which restoration times plateau. This supports resilience-based design of power infrastructure to minimize restoration time, resonating with RCS's interest in resilience evaluation methodologies. The observation that rapid power restoration does not necessarily correlate with faster community recovery emphasizes the importance of a holistic approach to urban resilience, considering housing, transportation, and business continuity.

Our results highlight the adaptability of communities during prolonged outages, illustrating the complex interplay between infrastructure systems and community functionality. These findings align with RCS's emphasis on life-cycle infrastructure resilience assessments and underscore the need for integrated resilience planning and disaster management strategies.

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Chia-Wei Hsu: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Methodology, Visualization, Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing. Ali Mostafavi: Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Methodology, Supervision, Writing - review & editing.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgments

This material is based in part upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under CRISP 2.0 Type 2 No. 1832662 and the Texas A&M University X-Grant 699. The authors also would like to acknowledge the data support from Spectus. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation, Texas A&M University, or Spectus.

Data availability

All data were collected through a CCPA- and GDPR-compliant framework and utilized for research purposes. The data that support the findings of this study are available from Spectus, but restrictions apply to the availability of these data, which were used under license for the current study. The data can be accessed upon request submitted to the providers. The data was shared under a strict contract through Spectus’ academic collaborative program, in which they provide access to de-identified and privacy-enhanced mobility data for academic research. All researchers processed and analyzed the data under a non-disclosure agreement and were obligated not to share data further or to attempt to re-identify data.

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