New England Outages Point to Grid Issues That Are Often Blamed on ‘Extreme Weather’

Power Grids

Storms in New England over the weekend have left thousands of people without power. Government data and studies show that these weather-related outages are becoming more frequent and lasting longer, which is often attributed to climate change, but analyses of grid resilience and research into disaster costs question that conclusion.  

In New York, about 55,000 people were without power on Monday morning after a storm brought high winds and two to four inches of rain, according to The New York Post. The same storm left as many as 45,000 households without power Monday morning, NJ.com reported. As of 10 a.m. Eastern Standard Time Monday, 226,626 residents of Maine were without power, and local Maine television stations say the worst may be yet to come.

Read More