Armed with seven years of DOE outage data, UConn researchers confirmed what every lineworker already knows: Heatwaves are most destructive when they pair up. (UConn)
In California, the lethal combo is heat + wind (wildfire risk). In Texas, it’s heat + rain. These "compounding events" push infrastructure past the breaking point far faster than high temps alone.
While the median US outage is a manageable five hours, compounding weather events drive the catastrophic tail risk, dragging restoration times out to 14 days. The data suggests standard reliability metrics are essentially useless for predicting these multi-hazard scenarios.
Worth noting: Florida experienced fewer outages than predicted despite its severe weather profile, proving you can build your way out of trouble if you target the right local risks rather than using a national "one-size-fits-all" model.