"fear" is necessary because I was stuck at an apartment for 3 days and nowhere to go with no heat and no water when the weather outside was -17 degrees.
As my comment suggested, you could change that fear to inconvenience with minimal preparation: put some water jugs, canned/packaged food, and blankets+cheap snow outfit in your closet, and throw in a little campground propane burner for a nice warm meal. -17 outdoors is a warm ski day indoors. If you've known anyone that lives in a cold part of the country, having some preparation is an extremely common practice.
Or fix the damn infrastructure. Other states and other countries get worse cold waves and others get worse heat waves and they don't lose power. Stop putting the blame on people.
> Campground
You realize most people love in apartments right? Most apartments don't have fireplaces.
> You realize most people love in apartments right? Most apartments don't have fireplaces.
No, I mean the little burners you put on top of portable propane tanks, that are usually used for BBQ's or while camping. Searching "campground propane burner" in Amazon shows several hundred results of what I'm talking about. They don't require a campground to operate.
> Or fix the damn infrastructure.
You and your fear exists in the reality that is right now, which includes bad infrastructure, that will almost certainly take years to fix. If you desire to not live in fear, for the next few years, you can easily do it with minimal, extremely common in places where it's cold, preparation. If you desire to continue living in short term fear, when it's so easy to mitigate that fear, then well I guess you do you.
You have to be careful using these burners in in-building enclosed spaces---they can produce carbon monoxide. They are really designed for open air use.
Good advice for folks stuck in a place where corruption makes basic utility service unreliable, but doing a bunch of extra work to make getting through those times when you are without power a little less painful is no replacement for solving the problem. If I were in that situation I'd just move. There are plenty of states in the US that do not regularly have problems providing power, heat, and water to the folks who pay for them.
I'm having trouble believing that having a bit of extra food and water available is considered some large burden. It's universally suggested by all entities that deal with emergencies: https://www.fema.gov/pdf/library/f&web.pdf
> If I were in that situation I'd just move.
It's great that you have the freedom and resources to move around the country so easily, but I think that's a fairly rare privilege.
> is no replacement for solving the problem
I don't think I suggested it was. But it's not feasible that the problem will be solved in the next few weeks. For those next few weeks, fear and risk can be minimized with some "extra work".
