CYCLONE AMPHAN: POWER OUTAGE & NEED FOR RESILIENT INFRASTRUCTURE

Disaster are disruptive events and can not be precisely predicted or controlled. In recent time - uncertainties induced by climate change has made natural disasters more disruptive due to various reasons. Changing nature of disaster (magnitude and frequency) is failing even the best “prepared country” in the world as far as protection of critical infrastructure (CI) is concerned. It is very common to see that after every sever incident - Planners redefine resilience requirements and set new standards for CI with a hope that services will sustain or will  “bounce back” from a disruption to a stable recovered state. This has formed a vicious circle between preparedness and disruptive events but a balance is yet to be achieved.

Power outages is one of the most common disruption during most of the natural disaster including wind storms, cyclones or hurricanes, tornedo, earthquake, or flood. Power outage may result into failure of interdependent infrastructures as well, like communications, financial, transportation and healthcare (cascade failure).

There are numerous example of extended power outages in United States due to extreme natural events. Examples are - Hurricane Sandy (2012; Hurricane Michael(2017); Hurricane Harvey(2017); Hurricane Maria(2017); Hurricane Florence (2018); Tropical Storm Imelda(2019) etc. Hundreds of thousands households were without power for many days in multiple states in US during these sever incidents.  

This is important to note that time for restoration of power will depend uponthe extent of damage inflicted on power sector infrastrucrures as whole including generation, transmission and distribution. It is not practicable to keep inventory of all components covering generation, transmission and distribution and authorities may not be able to estimate recovery times if infrastructures are damaged and need to be rebuilt.

Agitations and protest in Kolkata for delayed power restoration is reflects hardships faced in day-to-day functioning and sustenance of life. But such events are not under any one's control and planners may need time to assess and renew few things. This is the time when administration need citizen’s support and not opposite. It is very uncommon to see agitation /protest by citizens in United States even during extended power outages for days and weeks in the aftermath of a disaster. In most cases authority keep citizen informed about expected restoration time so as they can prepare barring exceptional situation when no time frame can be given.

Government in West Bangla and Odisha need to supported by one and all in the process of  planning, procuring and commission of better and more ressilient infrastrucrures as a “Quick-fix” will fail “quick” even before next distrutive event. At the same time power sector agencies should undertake assessment of damages to assess and inform probable restoration schedule. State Government should ensure that departments in core sectors (Power, water, R&B, Health, Communication etc..) works concurrently and not sequentially as far as damage assessment and restoration is concern.