Incident Report: The Effects of a Power Outage

“Today 's failure is a dramatic reminder of the importance of the uninterrupted flow of power to the health, safety, and well being of our citizens and the defense of our country.

event of a catastrophic disruption (fire) or disaster (hurricane) and a major IT or data center outage occurs

On 05/07/2018 at about 2255 hours, I was dispatched to 113 Frad Ave in reference to a battery that had occurred.

I confirmed with the SDG&E technician that the power was never interrupted to suite #150 he just removed the burnt meter and bypassed the meter socket.

On the day of December 20th, TechMed took down the main data center and disaster recovery center to conduct performance testing. The next day a backup of the database was

The cybersecurity simulation rounds in UMUC?s Cybersecurity Master 's degree capstone are an integral part of the learning program. The simulation rounds expose students to real world incidents in a cyber representation of the US. In this environment students are provided a chance to gain experience in a setting where mistakes are far less impactful than those made in the real world. The environment includes five critical infrastructure sectors; DTL Power, Federal Government, Hytema Defense, Mistral Bank and Avisitel Telecom. The control decisions made by each have the potential to impact other groups operating within the environment.

If you were the CIO of Jones Regional Medical Center during this system failure, what steps would you take during the outage? What steps would you take after the outage to reduce the likelihood of a reoccurrence of this problem?

On Monday, February 5th, in an email sent to parents, Principal Barbara Warner said that a power outage triggered a mechanical issue that created smoke.

On arrival they witnessed smoke and flames on the mid level of the building. Two battalion chiefs arrived on scene and one proceeded to set up incident command at the lobby, while the other led fire fighters up the building for fire attack (Routley 8). One of the security guards then informed the chiefs that the fire was on the 22nd floor, and at 2033 battalion chief 5 ordered a second alarm (Routley 8). Due to insufficient fire protection around the utility lines all power was lost to the building (Routley 8). At the loss of primary power the emergency generator didn’t kick in due to improper maintenance it was unable to start (Routley 8). This profoundly impacted the fire operations for the remainder of the incident because the entire building was left without electricity (Routley 8). As stated in the tactical report, “This total power failure had a major impact on the firefighting operations. The lack of lighting made it necessary for firefighters to carry out suppression operations in complete darkness using only battery powered lights. Since there was no power to operate elevators, firefighters were forced to hand carry all suppression equipment including SCBA replacement cylinders up the stairs to the staging area that was established on the 20th floor. In addition, personnel had to climb at least 20 floors

Following the frequency distribution and bar graph, further analysis must be done by using the last set of data which is the downtime data. Downtime data is collected in minutes that vary from 10 to 60 minutes. Each occurrence out of the 22 has a certain number of downtime minutes. To make the representations, explanations, calculations and analysis straightforward, the data is taken from the April-Server Downtime table then separated into the 5 cause categories and calculate each categories total downtime before creating representational graphs and charts.

Our society today is ever more dependent upon electricity in all aspects of life. Keeping the power infrastructure throughout the United States secure and functioning properly should be considered a high priority for both private sector and government. Lacking properly functioning power caused by an outage has widespread impact not just on common conveniences being unavailable but also on critical areas such as emergency services, transportation, water distribution, communication and food production and storage.

The 2003 northeast blackout that saw about 50 million people from the northeast US and southeast Canada lose power for about 2 days at the cost of $6 billion dollars according to JR Minkel (Minkle) and was the biggest blackout in North American history (Minkle). The disaster lead to a report that showed the blackout was caused by a combination of human error and equipment failure. To prevent issues like this in the future a “smart grid” needs to be developed that would monitor and repair itself in the event of problems. Essentially computers and applications would be the first responder when there is an equipment failure on the grid. The problem with this solution is that by placing more of the control of the power grid into the hands of computers and applications, it opens up the grid to cyber-attacks. The economic impact of a total or even partial failure of the power grid is astronomical and makes a very appealing target to those who wish to cause

In 1989, during our most recent solar maximum, currents induced by a geomagnetic storm brought down the power grid that supplies Canada's Quebec province. The next solar maximum expected in the year 2000 have the capacity of even greater damage. Our society has even greater dependence on electronic modes of communication as well as power sources (grids), which are enormous and interconnected, (in order to save money). This also increases the vulnerability to power outages. If, there were extended power outages in the heat of the summer, or during a cold wave, the losses would not only be financial, but would also include a large human toll.

The disaster took place on April 1986, and was caused by inexperienced staff. When the power plant had to undergo a special test, to make sure that sufficient amount of cooling water would be supplied to the reactor in case of a power outage. However, the test had been delayed, because the national grid required the power output more than the expected time. Hence, the test was postponed after midnight where the night shift had to come. The night shift had little experience about such a test as most of them were electrical engineers rather than nuclear. On the other hand, the night shift had to perform the test before the grid needed the power again, otherwise they would have all been fined or fired. Consequently, lead to an unnecessary pressure on the personnel, which in turn increased the probability of making incorrect

A large US public power provider, with millions of residential and business customers, needed to rethink its disaster recovery program. Due to budget constraints, the utility’s data recovery program had not been updated or tested for several years. Under the existing program, systems recovery could take up to 20 days—an unacceptable timeframe for a