Baton Rouge Post-Katrina: The Role of Critical Infrastructure Modeling in Promoting Resilience

INTRODUCTION: CIPDSS Validation Study as an Occasion for Monitoring ResilienceA common definition of resilience is "the capability of a system to maintain its functions and structure in the face of internal and external change and to degrade gracefully when it must." 1 This deceptively simple definition, however, belies longstanding difficulties in defining, measuring, and fostering resilience in general, particularly in the practical context of critical infrastructure systems. 2 In this article, the authors illustrate an approach to the challenges of achieving critical infrastructure resilience using modeling informed by infrastructure performance data. Observations are reported from a validation study of the Critical Infrastructure Protection Decision Support System model (CIPDSS), a simulation tool developed for the Science and Technology Directorate of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). This validation study considered the effects of a seminal disaster for the homeland security community - Hurricane Katrina - on Baton Rouge, Louisiana.The unprecedented increase in the population of Baton Rouge resulting from Katrina severely stressed critical infrastructures providing an ideal opportunity to exercise infrastructure modeling tools and observe factors that contribute to resilience. The results of the study are used to illustrate both the potential benefits and myriad challenges of modeling critical infrastructure resilience. The article first discusses the potential role of critical infrastructure modeling in promoting resilience, as revealed by the response to Hurricane Katrina. Second, we detail the methodology used in the validation study and summarize the factors measured to determine the level of infrastructure resilience in Baton Rouge. Third, drawing on our own collected data, we illustrate the importance of these factors by describing the performance of key infrastructure systems considered in the CIPDSS Validation Study. Last, we outline the results of our validation study and explore resulting insights into infrastructure resilience - namely, how critical infrastructure resilience can be promoted using simulation-based analyses.As is now well known, Hurricane Katrina caused massive destruction, loss of life, 3 and widespread systems-level failures in critical infrastructure, policy and political channels of communication and decision-making, homeland security, and disaster planning. 4 The contribution of critical infrastructure failures to the disastrous conditions following Katrina has been the subject of significant study, particularly with regard to hospital, 5 public health, 6 and telecommunications systems. 7 Because of these failures, Katrina has become a classic example of the dire consequences that accompany loss of infrastructure systems and, hence, the need for resilient infrastructure. 8 In fact, the importance of resilience for critical infrastructure (much of it privately owned) has achieved greater recognition and analytical interest in large part because of recent major disruptions, especially Katrina. 9To a certain degree these matters are now federal policy. 10 Government investigations of the response to Hurricane Katrina, such as The Federal Response to Hurricane Katrina: Lessons Learned, for instance, explicitly recognized the role that loss of critical infrastructure played in the disaster and, in turn, the ameliorative role that greater use of simulation-based analysis may play in improving disaster response. 11 The document recognized "critical infrastructure and impact assessment" as one of seventeen critical challenges for improved federal response, followed by the recommendation to enhance capacities to "rapidly assess the impact of a disaster on critical infrastructure." The report recommended that DHS revise the National Response Plan to provide a "stronger" role for the Infrastructure Support Branch in the National Operations Center, which would suggest remedial actions, based on the input of the National Infrastructure Simulation and Analysis Center (NISAC) and other entities. …