Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

I was never worried about the tsunami. Okay, maybe not gone, but I wouldn't say it would be operational.

https://www.oregon.gov/oem/Documents/Cascadia_Rising_Exercis...

50% of roads and near 75% of bridges damaged on the west coast and the I5 corridor.

Refer to PDF page #93 where over 70% of power generation is highly damaged on the I5 corridor and 60% in the coastal areas with 0% undamaged.

Highly damaged - "Extensive damage to generation plants, substations, and buildings. Repairs are needed to regain functionality. Restoring power to meet 90% of demand may take months to one year."

"In the immediate aftermath of the earthquake, cities within 100 miles of the Pacific coastline may experience partial or complete blackout. Seventy percent of the electric facilities in the I-5 corridor may suffer considerable damage to generation plants, and many distribution circuits and substations may fail, resulting in a loss of over half of the systems load capacity (see Table 22). Most electrical power assets on the coast may suffer damage severe enough as to render the equipment and structures irreparable"




Good backups generators at their colo's could handle the lack of utility power for days to weeks. More & better generators could be hauled in and connected.*

The two big problems I'd see would be (1) Social Order and (2) Internet Connectivity. DC's are not fortresses, and internet backbone fibers/routers/etc. are distributed & kinda fragile.

*After all the large-scale power outages & near-outages of recent decades, Cloudflare has no excuse if they lack really-good backup generators at critical facilities. And with their size, Cloudflare must support enough "critical during major disaster" internet services to actually get such generators.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: