Engineering Commons^™

Power Outage And Environmental Justice In Winter Storm Uri: An Analytical Workflow Based On Nighttime Light Remote Sensing, Jinwen Xu, Yi Qiang, Heng Cai, Lei Zou

GIS Center

The intensity of extreme weather events has been increasing, posing a unique threat to society and highlighting the importance of our electrical power system, a key component in our infrastructure. In severe weather events, quickly identifying power outage impact zones and affected communities is crucial for informed disaster response. However, a lack of household-level power outage data impedes timely and precise assessments. To address these challenges, we introduced an analytical workflow using NASA’s Black Marble daily nighttime light (NTL) images to detect power outages from the 2021 Winter Storm Uri. This workflow includes adjustments to mitigate viewing angle and snow …