Not all that long a time ago, we had a distributed-energy transportation system: horses. People as a matter of course stocked up on "fuel" to keep these carriages going. We used to have a distributed-government system, too, where the intensity of government increases as you moved down the government chain. Local government could call on the higher levels for help.
Now? our transportation system is too centralized. Gas is in short supply where it's needed not because there is no gas, it's because it is in the wrong place, in centralized storage tanks, and no significant means to get it where it is needed. Why? Because another centralized resource, electric power, has been knocked out by the storm.
The reason this becomes important is because we have another just-in-time system in place: food distribution. Instead of large stockpiles that would last a week, the typical store carries less than a day's supply of the necessaries. Without regular resupply, the shelves are bare. And what happened to the resupply? Gas/Diesel fuel not in the right place.
The term the National Transportation Safety Board uses for this domino effect is "failure cascade".
If that weren't bad enough, I saw the story this morning about recovery workers being told to move on (after they were invited to come up from Alabama!) because they were non-union employees. The Democrats talk about how the Republicans' health plan will cause people to die...yet their base inflicts the same penalty on innocents because someone with skills can't help because they don't carry a particular kind of card.
But I'm preaching to the choir, aren't I?
the more other systems are dependent on some increasingly centralized system, the more that “failure cascade” is likely when any big failure occurs
the fact is that our systems have become somewhat more economical, when everything is working, and more the source of spreading and making worse the effects of any disaster
I keep saying that if there is any really good future to solar and wind power, and “alternative” fuels it is to make for LESS dependency on “the grid” and to find more ways that energy can be supplied for local needs by local means - everything from your rooftop to a mini-storage-shed size nuclear power plant just for your own town (yes, they exist)