  A Cascadia Subduction Zone (CSZ) earthquake will cause widespread damage to
numerous lifelines and infrastructure along the northern US west coast. The
goal of the presented research is to provide a bottom up estimate of the impact
on and subsequent recovery of a Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake on the US
western grid to supplement and enhance the expert opinion estimates provided to
date. The scope is limited to consideration of shaking damage to utility
substation equipment components of a power system model. The analysis utilizes
probabilistic models of damage and recovery for substation power system assets,
along with graph techniques for modeling connectivity, and Monte Carlo quasi
steady state power flow solutions. The results show that a conservative
estimate of the initial damage and loss of load is approximately 4,000 MW, with
a recovery estimate of 230 days.
