You hit the nail on the head. I lived in a neighborhood in Baton Rouge during Katrina and Rita. The older part of my neighborhood had underground utilities. My house was just past the underground sections. Due to lack of distribution redundancy and switching, everyone lost power for at least a week during 99 degrees and 99 % humidity.
There are large inefficiencies in Generation (power plant), Transmission (high power lines), and point-to-point retail Distribution (step down connections).
There are better ways, but unless stakeholders demand their unelected bureaucracies stop protecting statist, monopolistic lobbyists, well all be in the dark.