Obama's EPA is setting up this same scenario in large parts of the country with its jihad on coal. Coal plants that supply more than half of the electricity in the US are being shut down by the EPA and there is no reliable replacement. Wind power is simply unreliable ...you cannot depend on the wind blowing just right to get their maximum production when there is peak demand. The same weather fronts that bring the cold snaps and heat waves that spike demand also can idle wind turbines. Nuclear power development has been stymied in the US for more than four decades and environmental groups are blocking new gas turbine plants, fracking that will increase natural gas production and any new large scale hydro plants. Large areas of the US are extremely vulnerable to blackouts and that danger is getting worse as the EPA shuts down more coal plants.
What a lot of people don’t know is that those rolling blackouts also left a lot of New Mexico without natural gas! Right in the middle of winter. If I was to install a generator I think I’d have to go with natural gas one, but this incident is a great example of two things everyone needs know, first there is no ‘one size fits all’ in prepping and two just how dependent and interdependent we are on the electrical grid.
http://www.krqe.com/dpp/news/environment/gas-and-electricity-affected-by-weather
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2668118/posts
Don't mess with Mexico.
It seems to me more and more that getting of the electrical grid completely is a desirable thing. I am thinking windmills, solar panels, inverters, generators.
Just get it all set up now, and use it to keep the electric bill down, and be able to switch totally.