The primary pillars of infrastructure holding together the urban centers of the U.S. are vulnerable to failures that can knock out the supply chain, safety networks, and the economy itself. As we’ve seen during the levee failures of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the Northridge earthquake in 1994, these disasters are sudden and leave substantial damage in its wake that can take decades to remedy.
The interdependencies of transportation networks, waterways, pipelines, and electrical grids are complex and involve an overlapping of jurisdictions, both private and public. Those complexities represent significant vulnerabilities in monitoring and tracking the resiliencies of the very networks designed to make us safe.
