After the Lights Go Out: Household Resilience to Electrical Grid Failure Following Hurricane Irma

In September 2017, Hurricane Irma turned off power for 6.7 million people in the state of Florida. Despite increasing threats to the US electrical grid, there are few studies on household impacts from prolonged power failure. The authors conducted interviews with 42 residents of Highlands and Orange Counties, Florida, following the hurricane. Interviews reflect a range of socioeconomic statuses, genders, ages, and neighborhood characteristics. Classic patterns of resilience emerged in quantitative and qualitative analysis. Households with White respondents, higher incomes, and fewer elderly, very young, or non-English speaking residents demonstrated increased resilience to the storm and subsequent blackout. Respondents who identified as White were two and a half times as likely to report using a generator than residents identifying with any other racialized groups. Households with children younger than 6 living in the home were five times as likely to report difficulty accessing food and water than those without young children. This study provides groundwork for further analysis of blackout hazards and can be used to increase household and community resilience to future blackout events.