Power shutdowns are nothing new, but main storms over the past two years possess hammered home the importance of electrical energy. Last fall Hurricane Soft sand pummeled the Northeast, disrupting power for more than 8 mil customers and leaving households homeless as temperatures decreased. Sandy blew in just a year after a historically destructive snowstorm hit the same region. Actually 2011 was among the country's worst years on document for grid-disabling natural unfortunate occurances, with power interruptions lengthier than 24 hours affecting twenty one million customers. Sadly, Black sand promised a second consecutive yr of dire power-outage figures.