A Lesson in Resilience From Derecho

As this year's Fourth of July celebrations were being finalized, many people were not feeling particularly lucky ‐ a weather anomaly called a “derecho” disrupted power to 4.3 million people over 10 Midwest and Mid‐Atlantic states on June 29 and 30. The National Weather Service describes a derecho as a widespread, long‐lived, straight‐line windstorm that is associated with a fast‐moving band of severe thunderstorms. Given the widespread power outage and related communication issues, the severe weather tested the affected water utilities' ability to maintain normal operations. All of this coincided with one of the hottest periods on record in many states and escalated the public's frustration because of an inability to gain relief from the heat.