I agree, but I read that a lot of the people who had terrible problems that winter a few years ago, many were low-income residents of TX. I think $2,000 for a generator is a nonstarter for them.

Everyone had problems that winter. It was pretty universally felt. How you recover from it is where your economic status changes your experience. If you are under insured or can’t come up with your insurance deductible you’re pretty screwed but we can’t solve all the worlds problems with this alone.

So my general albeit cold sounding response is “Doesn’t matter.” We should have the expectation that it’s owner responsibility first. After that, we can devise subsidies and such to ensure everyone can retrofit their house. There’s a ton of levers to work with once you admit that the grid and power transmission isn’t some god like thing that never fails

You can’t hinder progress because someone can’t afford it. They maybe did have the money if it meant a few bucks a month on their bill, but they were never told this risk existed, we all thought we lived in a modern enough country that we would never be without power for an entire week. But we also have never seen freezing temperatures for a solid week either, not in anyone I knows lifetime including some 90 year olds.

Once I know the problem exists, I’d rather spend the $2k and have a solution at hand than take on the full system costs of winterizing/prepping for a once in a century(?) snow storm. That would perpetually make my energy cost go up by 10% or more. It’s the smarter solution with better ROI if people DIY the contingency.