Not even a question - it would take some getting used to (and until we get the radio teletype gulch up and running kinda lonely) but my business and home is not only designed to withstand such a possibility, but operate more efficiently in such a situation.

The only thing I'm missing (can't find either of them - been looking for the past few days) is my Smith-Corona desk model, my Olivetti portable from school (from way before the days of the iPad), and the ribbons that go with them.

A "nationwide power failure" is not impossible, but ... One reason that I moved to Austin in 2011 is that in 2000, I did a project for American Electric Power of Columbus. They bought a company in Dallas, Central Southwest. So, I flew down on Monday mornings and home on Friday nights for six weeks. Texas is divided into independent regions. ERCOT the Electrical Reliability Council of Texas is the watchdog. The kind of failures experienced in the northeast and California with cascading blackouts from a single event are physically impossible here.

Working in private security in many places these past 13 years, checking the generators has been one of the usual duties of a patrol. Any place important (or self-important) has them.

When we lived in Ann Arbor (2005-2011), blackouts were common. Detroit Edison was the provider. Our neighbors had generators. It got noisy after a while and we were happy to have the central power come back on.

That said, I also note that we had that big run-up to Y2K with everyone getting ready for total collapse. Then, about two weeks into the century, a storm hit the East Coast and actually no one was prepared, apparently, or at least not in North Carolina... It is hard to say what would happen.