Post-Earthquake Restoration Planning for Los Angeles Electric Power

This paper describes the application of a new discrete-event-simulation model of the post-earthquake electric power restoration process in Los Angeles. The findings are that (1) Los Angeles residents may experience power outages lasting up to 10 days; (2) what we call the power rapidity risk (the joint probability distribution of restoration of a specified number of customers in a specified amount of time) varies throughout the area; (3) there is a relatively high likelihood that more repair materials than are currently available will be required if a large earthquake occurs; and (4) there are ways to reduce the expected duration of earthquake-initiated power outages and they should be subjected to cost-benefit analysis. These results should be useful to utilities and emergency planners in Los Angeles. The new simulation modeling approach could be used in other seismically active cities to gain insights into the restoration process that other modeling approaches cannot provide.