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Critical national infrastructures for power, finance, transportation, and other basic resources rely on information and telecommunications networks (voice, data, Internet) something as simple as a spilled cup of coffee to something as complex as an intricate upgrade program being mishandled at critical points. Sabotage, or intentional disaster, can result in localized problems or widespread failures of infrastructure; it normally occurs with little or no advance warning. A disaster from any of the categories can cause dramatic changes in the loads placed on the infrastructures delivering the services that our economy and our personal lives depend on.

BackgroundDisruptions to our critical national infrastructures (e.g., power, telecommmunications, shipping) are areas of increasing national concern. For example, since the events of September 11, 2001, container shipments through U.S. ports are believed to be a potential pathway for the introduction of weapons of mass destruction into the United States, thereby threatening homeland security. New security measures have been implemented, and others have been proposed, in an effort to reduce this perceived threat.These measures call for additional processes and equipment in container shipment to better characterize and control cargo. Much of this requires increased reliable communications. Requiring new security measures can change important performance characteristics of the port such as the time and cost required to import and export goods. These performance changes can suppress overall demand for shipping and change the relative attractiveness of ports to importers, exporters, and cargo carriers. Successful port operations require the coordinated action through communications of many disparate people and organizations, including ship owners, port authorities, importers and exporters, labor unions, and government agencies. Port operations depend on reliable performance of various infrastructures, including electric power systems, telecommunications systems, and petroleum refining and distribution systems. Understanding the potential for disruptions caused by infrastructure interactions is one goal of the effort to make infrastructures more secure [6]. We are therefore interested in the sensitivity of port performance to infrastructure disruptions; specifically, we focus on this question: What are the conditions that cause infrastructure disruptions and how will those disruptions impact port operations?There are two primary time scales of interest in this problem [1]. First, the mechanics of port operations and its performance in response to disruptions operates on a time scale extending over days and weeks to months. Second, long-term competitiveness and economic viability of a port-especially in shouldering the burden of paying for increased security measures-play out over a time scale that extends over years to more than a decade. Here we hypothesize that, similar to many system dynamics problems [2,5], cause and effect may not be closely related in time. In this paper, we focus on the short-term impacts of telecommunications disruptions.

increasingly rely on telecommunications to help them work efficiently while reducing their energy consumption. The current worldwide focus to reduce energy consumption and ecological impacts is adding

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