I can’t blame them.
Here, emergency crews are welcomed and even given free meals at places like Denny’s and Waffle House.................
Same story here in NH. Where we seem to have power outages annually. I have personally bought dinners for out of state lineman. I have seen people stand on the side of the road cheering and clapping for the trucks as they passed.
Keep in mind we have power outages EVERY year. This is because we routinely have ice storms and wet heavy snow sometimes in excess of a foot. This causes trees to break and bring down the lines. Which is why I and almost everyone I know owns a generator.
Our issue is that NH is the second most forested state(as a percentage) in the country. Only Maine is more forested. Vermont is number three. They have more farms than us.
FYI, NH was 80% cleared after the Civil War. A hundred years later NH was just the opposite. 80% forested. It has only become MORE forested since. The trees just grew back all by themselves.
The other factor is that the power companies (Eversource primarily) have realized it is actually financially better for them to wait for a tree to break and bring down the power line than be proactive and trim all the trees around the lines. They marked trees in front of my house during covid(2020). They have yet to cut them down.
Two months ago a branch broke off a oak tree during a windy day and touched the ground while touching the top(HOT dangerous) wire. It started a brush fire right on the corner of my property and the road. Fortunately a passer by called 911 and the local volunteer fire department put of the fire before it got too big. It got within about 60’ of where my tractor was parked.
Back when Alicia stomped thru Houston (I was there — 3 days without power in summer) hundreds of linemen were welcomed. Now, since it is a blue city everything is trashed.
Burn, baby, burn.