I saw articles that said they had to keep the feed to downtown areas with hospitals so office buildings were lit up too. Don’t most of med facilities have diesel or gas turbine gen set backups?
The emergency plan would have nothing to do with the grid. The buildings facilities department would have already have a plan in place that when notified, they would cut back to security level lighting, 45 degrees on the thermostat, minimum load on air handlers, standby power level on data centers. Huge power savings without affecting hospitals or other critical functions.
The county judges need to be held responsible for their poor preparation or this crap will be repeated in the future.