Re: power outages, I am lucky in 2 ways. The power lines are underground here, so if power goes out it means something happened in an adjoining neighborhood, and larger areas of outages are given priority for repairs. The other good thing is the small (1 truck) firehouse around the corner -- things like fire stations and hospitals are top priority in widespread outages.

I just saw an outage map. Most counties around here have 20-30% of customers in the dark. One down in southern Maryland has also 50% without power. It is a sparsely populated county, a nice place for cycling. Meanwhile I see reports of flooding in my hometown, which does not surprise me.