Can Terrorists Turn Out Gotham's Lights?
Article by Peter Huber and Mark Mills
City Journal, Autumn 2004

The Need for Power Security Standards (EYP MCF)
ANSI-HSSP Presentation, December 13-14, 2004 Electric Power Standards and Guidelines Relevant to Critical Power
Summary Table of Standards and Guidelines

White Paper
Download Full 56-Page Text
Executive Summary: Critical Power White Paper

Electricity occupies a uniquely important role in the infrastructure of modern society. A complete loss of power shuts down telephone switches, wireless cell towers, bank computers, E911 operator centers, police communication networks, hospital emergency rooms, air traffic control, street lights, and the electrically actuated valves and pumps that move water, oil, and gas, along with the dedicated, highly-specialized communications networks that control those physical networks. Familiar and pedestrian though electric power may seem, it is the first domino of critical infrastructure.

The public electric grid, however, is inherently vulnerable. Relatively small numbers of huge power plants are linked to millions of locations by hundreds of thousands of miles of exposed wires. Nearly all the high-voltage lines run above ground and traverse open country, and a handful of high-voltage lines serve entire metropolitan regions. And serious problems tend to propagate rapidly through the grid itself.