Plan Now for a ‘Black Sky Event’ (David Maxwell Commentary)

In my years as the emergency management director and Homeland Security adviser for the state of Arkansas, I was often asked what kept me up at night. Many believed it would be an earthquake on the New Madrid Seismic Zone, tornadoes, floods, ice storms, terrorism or any number of other potential disasters. My response was always the same: It’s what I don’t know or haven’t thought about.

Since retiring I have done some work for the Electric Infrastructure Security Council and have found one of those things that should have been keeping me up at night: It is a widespread, long-term outage of the electrical grid. What we call “black sky events.” By widespread, we mean regional, multiregional or continental, and long-term would be three weeks to a year or more.

Such an outage could be triggered by events both naturally occurring and caused by humans. A human-caused event would include an electromagnetic pulse or intentional electromagnetic interference, a cyberattack or a coordinated physical assault. Natural hazards could be a seismic event like a high-magnitude earthquake, a geomagnetic disturbance (severe space weather) or hurricanes and other severe weather events. EISCouncil.org, the EISC website, has more complete information on each of these.

Arkansans who have lost electrical power in the major ice storms that seem to hit our state every eight years or so have some understanding of just how the loss of electricity affects you. Our electric providers have an excellent record and have really spoiled us with their ability to quickly get the power back on.

However, the causes that would trigger a black sky event take the response and restoration to a new level. In a longer outage, the cascading effects magnify. We are dependent on electricity to do almost everything. We need electricity to power our water and sewer systems; produce fuel, food and pharmaceuticals; and power our communications systems. Yes, some of these have backup generation systems, but those generators require fuel. Hospitals have generators to continue to provide services, but, once again, how much fuel do they have on site? And will fuel continue to be available?

Consider all that and then consider that less than 20 percent of the population reports doing anything to prepare for even the normal events we have every year and you might begin to understand the magnitude of this type of event.

The good news is that a growing number of organizations are taking steps to be as resilient as possible. Many electric companies, providing either generation, transmission or distribution services, are taking the probability of these risks seriously. Government at all levels is becoming increasingly aware of the issues and is developing plans. Water companies, hospitals and public health entities as well as regulators are becoming more aware.

But this is a business publication, so let’s talk about what the private sector can do. I’ll suggest a few things:

• If you don’t have a solid continuity of operations plan or business continuity plan, start that effort. Many businesses, especially small businesses, fold after almost every disaster, and that’s often simply because they didn’t plan.
• Help your employees and their families get better prepared. If they are concerned about their family’s well-being, they are not going to be as productive. They may not even leave their families to come to work.
• Get to know the government officials who will be making the hard decisions about who gets priority for scarce resources. That may not move your needs higher on the priority list, but you will at least understand how the decisions are made, where you can help and the plans you need to make for yourself.

A final suggestion: When you go to the EISC’s website, look under the tab for EARTH EX. EARTH EX 18 will be on Aug. 22 and will have several “lanes” in which entities can participate. More than that, it will have a citizens lane so anyone can participate in a great learning experience. 

David Maxwell of Conway, a senior homeland security and emergency management adviser to the nonprofit Electric Infrastructure Security Council in Washington, was director of the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management from 2006-16. Email him at Dave.Maxwell@EISCouncil.org. For information about other EIS initiatives, contact Shandi Treloar, private sector coordinator, at Shandi.Treloar@EISCouncil.org.