Maintaining critical infrastructure resilience to natural hazards during the COVID-19 pandemic: hurricane preparations by US energy companies

This article describes the ways that an energy organization, the regional transmission operator PJM, is preparing for hurricanes during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. PJM is using a combination of technological and organizational processes to prepare for hurricanes during the pandemic.

Activities include the development of a third control room to increase redundancy and maintaining social distance at control centre, investment in more resilient communications technology to maintain connectivity, and taking a holistic approach to identify issues related to supply chain and fuel security.

With this mix of organizational and technological processes, we argue that critical infrastructure resilience should be understood as a sociotechnical construct and identify several recommendations for improving resilience. The article has implications for policymakers working to maintain infrastructure resilience to natural hazards during the COVID-19 pandemic.