Penn Law School Hosts Forum On US Infrastructure Fragility
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- The law school of the University of Pennsylvania today hosted a daylong look into something everybody uses, and almost nobody appreciates: infrastructure, and how government and business need to cooperate to keep it working.
The lives we live today depend on 18 critical areas of infrastructure, Mark Gerencser -- vice-president at forum co-sponsor Booz Allen Hamilton -- told a late-morning session: everything from food, water, and electricity to postal and shipping services.
So, across that wide field, Gerenscer says he tried to "highlight inherent vulnerabilities of our infrastructure, such that when we actually upgrade and improve them, we do it in a fashion that also makes them less vulnerable to natural disaster and terrorist-induced things. And we think that's important to be done together."
The systemwide fix is estimated at $2.1 trillion ($1 trillion alone for the electric grid), and Gerenscer says it's just as complex as it is expensive, with government, utilities, and consumers often not on the same page.
Reported by John Ostapkovich, KYW Newsradio 1060
