It's really not that uncommon here in Canada. State of emergency gets declared and we just go about our business. North East US did fine in '03. Texas was ugly when their grid went down not so long ago, but I think that was more from the snow. They're not really used to a real winter, so when it started snowing at the same latitude as Bagdad, it kind of freaked them out.

At least here in Canada we're kind of used to nature trying to kill us. My friend used to joke "when Texans say 'this is God's country' they mean God made this land just for us. When Canadians say 'this is God's country' they mean this is the land he was keeping for himself, and he's not happy about us sleeping on his couch."