Method and apparatus for dynamic provisioning of reliable connections in the presence of multiple failures in optical networks are described. One embodiment is a method for allocation of protection paths after a failure in an optical network. The method comprises, responsive to a failure in an active lightpath, switching traffic on the active lightpath to a protection path; subsequent to the switching, identifying all active lightpaths in the network that no longer have an available protection path; and attempting to allocate a protection path to each of the identified active lightpaths.