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1. Flood Impacts on Critical Infrastructure in a Coastal Floodplain in Western Puerto Rico during Hurricane María

   https://doi.org/10.3390/hydrology8030104  

   Mejia Manrique, Said A.; Harmsen, Eric W.; Khanbilvardi, Reza M.; González, Jorge E. (September 2021, Hydrology)

   null (Ed.)

   Flooding during extreme weather events damages critical infrastructure, property, and threatens lives. Hurricane María devastated Puerto Rico (PR) on 20 September 2017. Sixty-four deaths were directly attributable to the flooding. This paper describes the development of a hydrologic model using the Gridded Surface Subsurface Hydrologic Analysis (GSSHA), capable of simulating flood depth and extent for the Añasco coastal flood plain in Western PR. The purpose of the study was to develop a numerical model to simulate flooding from extreme weather events and to evaluate the impacts on critical infrastructure and communities; Hurricane María is used as a case study. GSSHA was calibrated for Irma, a Category 3 hurricane, which struck the northeastern corner of the island on 7 September 2017, two weeks before Hurricane María. The upper Añasco watershed was calibrated using United States Geological Survey (USGS) stream discharge data. The model was validated using a storm of similar magnitude on 11–13 December 2007. Owing to the damage sustained by PR’s WSR-88D weather radar during Hurricane María, rainfall was estimated in this study using the Weather Research Forecast (WRF) model. Flooding in the coastal floodplain during Hurricane María was simulated using three methods: (1) Use of observed discharge hydrograph from the upper watershed as an inflow boundary condition for the coastal floodplain area, along with the WRF rainfall in the coastal flood plain; (2) Use of WRF rainfall to simulate runoff in the upper watershed and coastal flood plain; and (3) Similar to approach (2), except the use of bias-corrected WRF rainfall. Flooding results were compared with forty-two values of flood depth obtained during face-to-face interviews with residents of the affected communities. Impacts on critical infrastructure (water, electric, and public schools) were evaluated, assuming any structure exposed to 20 cm or more of flooding would sustain damage. Calibration equations were also used to improve flood depth estimates. Our model included the influence of storm surge, which we found to have a minimal effect on flood depths within the study area. Water infrastructure was more severely impacted by flooding than electrical infrastructure. From these findings, we conclude that the model developed in this study can be used with sufficient accuracy to identify infrastructure affected by future flooding events. 

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2. Stakeholder perspectives on increasing electric power infrastructure integrity

   Oneill, E.; McCalley, J.; Kimber, A.; Haug, R. (January 2019, ASEE annual conference & exposition)

   This paper presents results from ten stakeholder engagement activities held in Puerto Rico after hurricane María in 2017. This was part of an NSF-funded project to identify, refine, and examine five visions for redeveloping and enhancing the local electric infrastructure in Puerto Rico. The results from the project will be shared with local decision-makers to inform energy policy directions. The ten group activities were divided in two rounds. The first round consisted of six different focus groups: Four groups had mainly technical background while the other two were community focus groups. Questions in this first round were related to participant’s perceptions on what failed, and on recommendations on changes to make the electric infrastructure more resilient. The results of the first phase were used to guide some of the assumptions used in the modeling and simulation of the five proposed visions. In the mid-point of the project, stakeholders were again engaged to provide feedback on initial results and to fine-tune the project’s simulations and analysis. The participants without power background were more positive about new ideas, although in general, these were for a different kind of approach to build and manage the local electric infrastructure. As the number of years of experience in the power industry increased, so did resistance to new ideas for the power grid. Further discussion of the results from all ten group activities is presented in the paper. 

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3. Modeling of Inter-Organizational Coordination Dynamics in Resilience Planning: A Multilayer Network Simulation Framework

   Li, Q. (January 2019, ASCE International Conference on Computing in Civil Engineering 2019)

   This paper proposed and tested a multilayer framework for modeling network dynamics of inter-organizational coordination in resilience planning among interdependent infrastructure sectors. Each layer in the network represents one infrastructure sector such as flood control, transportation, and emergency response. Coordination probability was introduced to approximate the inconsistent coordination between organizations, based on which the intra-layer or inter-layer link removal was conducted and inter-organizational coordination efficiency within and across infrastructure sectors was hereby unveiled. To test the proposed framework, a multilayer collaboration network of 35 organizations from five infrastructure sectors in Harris County, Texas, was mapped based on a survey of Hurricane Harvey. The analysis results showed that before Hurricane Harvey, coordination among flood control, transportation, and infrastructure development sectors lacked essential integration to foster robust resilience plans. The proposed framework enables an assessment of coordination efficiency among organizations involving in resilience planning and provides an indicator for urban resilience measurement. 

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4. Quantifying cascading power outages during climate extremes considering renewable energy integration

   https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-57565-4  

   Xu, Luo; Lin, Ning; Poor, H Vincent; Xi, Dazhi; Perera, A_T D (March 2026, Nature Communications)

   Climate extremes, such as hurricanes, combined with large-scale integration of environment-sensitive renewables, could exacerbate the risk of widespread power outages. We introduce a coupled climate-energy model for cascading power outages, which comprehensively captures the impacts of climate extremes on renewable generation, and transmission and distribution networks. The model is validated with the 2022 Puerto Rico catastrophic blackout during Hurricane Fiona – a unique system-wide blackout event with complete records of weather-induced outages. The model reveals a resilience pattern that was not captured by the previous models: early failure of certain critical components enhances overall system resilience. Sensitivity analysis on various scenarios of behind-the-meter solar integration demonstrates that lower integration levels (below 45%, including the current level) exhibit minimal impact on system resilience in this event. However, surpassing this critical level without pairing it with energy storage can exacerbate the probability of catastrophic blackouts. 

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5. Hurricane Sandy: Damages, Disruptions and Pathways to Recovery

   https://doi.org/s41885-021-00082-7  

   Meng, Sisi and (March 2021, Economics of disasters and climate change)

   Critical infrastructure and public utility systems are often severely damaged by natural disasters like hurricanes. Based on a framework of household disaster resilience, this paper focuses on the role of utility disruption on household-level recovery in the context of Hurricane Sandy. Using data collected through a two-stage household survey, it first confirms that the sample selection bias is not present, thus the responses can be estimated sequentially. Second, it quantitatively examines factors contributing to hurricane-induced property damages and household-level recovery. The finding suggests that respondents who suffered from a longer period of utility disruptions (e.g., electricity, water, gas, phone/cell phone, public transportation) are more likely to incur monetary losses and have more difficulty in recovering. Effective preparedness activities (e.g., installing window protections, having an electric generator) can have positive results in reducing adverse shocks. Respondents with past hurricane experiences and higher educational attainments are found to be more resilient compared to others. Finally, the paper discusses the implications of the findings on effective preparation and mitigation strategies for future disasters. 

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