More hours in the dark
The U.S. Energy Information Administration reports that electricity customers averaged about 11 hours of interruptions in 2024, nearly double the average of the previous decade. Most of the increase came from major events such as hurricanes, which accounted for nearly nine hours, compared with about four hours a year from 2014 through 2023. Routine outages from equipment and maintenance stayed near their usual two hours.
Parts that take years
A grid damaged on a large scale is rebuilt with large power transformers, and they are scarce. A June 2024 report to the President's National Infrastructure Advisory Council found average lead times of about 120 weeks in 2024, up from about 50 weeks in 2021, with large substation and generator step-up units ranging from 80 to 210 weeks. One U.S. facility disclosed a five-year wait for new orders. Prices for transformers rose about 80 percent from the start of the pandemic.
Short outages are repaired with crews and spare parts. A regional failure that destroys large transformers is repaired on manufacturing timelines measured in years.
Planners are noticing
In 2026, the Pentagon's FORTRESS initiative set a goal of 90 days of self-sufficiency for major bases, and Britain asked every household to be ready for three days. The Iberian blackout showed a modern grid can fail across two countries on an ordinary afternoon.
What it means for a family estate
An outage measured in hours is an inconvenience. A failure measured in transformer lead times is a different problem, and it is the one the 180-day standard is built for: power, water, heat and food that do not depend on the grid through a full winter. See how your household stands with the Readiness Report, and read why solar and batteries alone are not enough.
Briefings summarize public reporting and official sources linked above. Where reporting is preliminary, we say so.