Archive for November 6th, 2012

Credit: UTC Power

When Hurricane Sandy began crawling up the Atlantic Coast and on its way to merging with a Nor’easter just before Halloween that would give it especially frightening strength and staying power, meteorologists gave it a new nickname: “Frankenstorm.” A full week in the wake of Sandy, over a million electricity users still wait for power restoration.

The U.S. has seen a spate of so-called “superstorms” in the last 10 years that have caused billions of dollars in damage to infrastructure, homes and businesses. U.S. businesses are absorbing huge losses from these superstorms. It has been estimated that even very brief power outages caused by interruptions in power transmission systems result in between $3 billion and $5 billion in financial losses each year in the U.S.

If power-disrupting storms are the new normal, U.S. businesses are in for an expensive future. Read the rest of this entry »