Newswise — Seth Guikema, assistant professor of industrial and operations engineering and civil and environmental engineering at the University of Michigan, and colleagues have generated a power outage forecast that they will update regularly. He can discuss Hurricane Irma's potential impacts on the power grid and infrastructure. Guikema uses big-data analytics to predict the hurricane's effects and enable power companies, first responders and others to deploy resources more efficiently.

"As the storm progresses, we will be updating our power outage model, which is publicly available," he said. "Our model provides information for utilities planning for the restoration and also for citizens, government agencies, and other private and public entities to help them make more informed decisions about how to prepare for and respond to this storm."

Guikema can be reached at 734-369-2469 or sguikema@umich.edu.