DEM Plans Section Update - Utility Disruption Planning

Just a some notes on  from Kerry Kimble, State DEM Planner, on DEM's planning team activities.  The DEM planning team is currently working on two projects: (1) our Governor's Energy Office with their 2011 Energy Assurance Plan; and (2) FEMA Region VIII is developing a regional response plan for a large earthquake.  

For each of these projects utility disruption is a basic premise.   

When the power grid goes down, quite a bit of the infrastructure also goes down.  For long-term outages, we are trying to develop a prioritized list of infrastructure to be restored.  The definition of "long-term" is four hours plus.  After that, selected pieces of the infrastructure will need to be addressed as far as becoming operational.  (We are ignoring the fact some facilities will have back-up generators, because sometimes those do not kick in when they are suppose to.)