I don't remember people going without power for a week after a storm. The crews from the power company got to work immediately and fixed things right away.
What's different now?
Those power companies have downsized their maintenance crews. They do less preventive maintenance, so the problems are more frequent and more severe. And when the problems happen, the reduced workforce takes longer to do the job.
As a result, people who can ill afford to pay for it have to throw out spoiled food, have no way of cooking, risk life-threatening heat, live without hot water, and search for alternative shelter. Not to mention less severe "inconveniences" like not being able to communicate with anyone because you can't recharge your cell phone or get internet access.
The utility company saves a few bucks and pushes a big cost onto all of us.
Rich folks don't mind. They have back-up generators. They can move to the vacation home a few days early.
Champions of small government, like Ohio Governor John Kasich, call out the National Guard and ask for federal aid to help the understaffed utilities, forgetting that every dollar that he gets to bail out the utilities is a dollar that we can't spend on hundreds of other things that are more important to our communities, including being better prepared for the inevitable emergency.
The sad thing is that people accept this as the new normal. When did we lose our common sense?