Natural Disasters = Energy Outages

IEA provides generation systems, monitoring services and asset management services that will allow your business to quickly recover from a natural disaster. Through on-site generation, IEA can help to keep your energy flowing, your lights on, your security systems empowered and your productivity intact.

Lost productivity and financial losses were a result of the power outages caused by the violent windstorms in October, 2006.  More than 100,000 utility customers in the Northeastern region lost power.

Utility power outages as a result of the snowstorm  in Buffalo, New York on October 12, 2006. Six people were killed and clean up costs were estimated at approximately $95 million.  -Associated Press, 10-24-06

Power was cut to over 200,000 businesses and homes. Over 600 businesses claimed damage to the Small Business Administration. 

 
Adam DuBrowa/FEMA

Power loss and standby generation failures as a result of the earthquake that hit Hawaii in October, 2006. On Oahu the earthquake caused shutdown of two of the utilities' generators and subsequently caused power outages for more than 14 hours to hundreds of thosands of customers and businesses. Losses are estimated at $40 Million by the Insurance Industry.

Operations at the Honolulu airport were brought to a stop due to power losses and insufficient emergency standby generation on site.

Widespread blackouts occurred in Northwest Queens, New York City, July 2006. 25,000 customers were without ower for up to 10 days. Power was interrupted to the LaGuardia Airport and parts of the subway. The New York State Prison facility on Rikers Island was forced to use natural gas fired backup emergency generation for several days, causing the loss of air conditioning and other disruptions.

At the hearing held in August 2006 by the New York Public Service Commission, James Gallagher, Director of the Office of Electricity and Environment of the New York Department of Public Service, “testified that the blackout represented a ‘significant public health and safety risk' and a 'significant economic loss'.” -Wikipedia.org

In an arrangement made between the utility, Con Ed, and the NY Public Service Commission, each business was limited to claim $7,000 in reimbursement from Con Ed from the 10 day outage.

The Hurricanes of 2005 caused massive power outages in Florida.

“For recovery from all 2005 storms that impacted Florida - hurricanes Dennis, Wilma, Katrina and Rita - more than $1.3 billion in Public Assistance funds, covering more than 11,800 projects, has reached city, county and state applicants.” -FEMA

“Hurricanes now cause an average of 14 deaths and $5 Billion in property damage per year in the United States.” -Florida Hurricane Alliance

Millions in several states without power as a result of Hurricane Katrina August, 2005. During the initial aftermath of the hurricane, approximately 2.7 million customers reported outages in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida (see table below).