Industry Highlights

As if the loss of life and property that often results from forest fires is not enough, a new study indicates that fire events can also contaminate the local drinking water supply.  This is an [...]

Most of my blog posts revolve around utility disaster planning, but there are definitely things we can learn by analyzing emergency preparedness efforts in other sectors.  As such, let’s take a [...]

The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), a division of the Department of Transportation, is actively soliciting feedback to improve the upcoming 2020 edition of the [...]

Verizon is known as an innovative and progressive company, and their secret disaster relief cave in Kansas City is just another example of this.  The cave – known as “The Farm” – stores backup [...]

Ya know, it’s always something.  Scientists and grid operators are currently struggling with developing a response plan for solar storms, which could cause widespread power outages.  In fact, the [...]

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) recently released a new earthquake study, specifically focused on the effects of a hypothetical scenario involving a magnitude 7.0 quake around the Hayward Fault [...]

According to the Blue Ribbon Study Panel on Biodefense, the risk of biothreats is real, increasing, and something for which we as a nation are woefully unprepared to handle. Ouch! The Ins and [...]

I read a very thought-provoking New York Times article that questions the financial responsibility arising from utility negligence.  The article centers on a bill currently before the California [...]

When it comes to emergency preparedness, lessons learned are a powerful tool.  One recent example of this relates to the learnings from the ongoing Hawaii volcano crisis, which have been used to [...]

I am not sure if this is a cry wolf scenario or not, but according to California PUC President Michael Picker, further deregulation / diversification of the state’s electricity industry could [...]