Wally Thompson of RBERS tells me that the following shows what amateur radio can do:

When a blip on the electricity distribution grid August 14 took out power to at least a half dozen states in the eastern US,
many Amateur Radio operators were ready and able to provide whatever assistance they could.

Hardest hit were metropolitan areas like New York City, Detroit and Cleveland. In New York, residents and commuters found themselves stranded in electricity-dependent elevators and subway or rail cars while visitors ended up stuck at airports, which were forced to shut down.

With the cellular telephone system overloaded or out altogether, the incident turned into a test of Amateur Radio's capabilities to operate without commercial power.

"It was a good drill," said New York City-Long Island Section Emergency Coordinator Tom Carrubba. But, he adds, it was a cautionary tale too. "The lesson is that everybody gets a little complacent," he said. "Have emergency power backup and make sure it's working!"  By and large, Carrubba said, the system worked according to plan, and Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) members did what they were trained to do." It’s going to show the worth of Amateur Radio," he said of the blackout response. "There were people on the air immediately."

In upstate New York, Fred Stevens says the situation reminded him of the 1964 power blackout in the eastern US. "This is an emergency communicator's wildest fantasy: a major power outage in which we can demonstrate our preparedness," he said. It seems that the amateurs were better prepared than the government sector," Ken Davis of Rensselaer County said. "Amateurs in this area were up and on the air before there was any response from local government."

Nancy Hall, who lives 20 miles west of Cleveland, said she's glad of two things: That she had taken the Amateur Radio Relay League (ARRL) Emergency Communications Level I class, and that she and her husband have an emergency generator. "We used it to run the fridge for about two hours and then used it to run the 2-meter rig and high frequency rig to listen to the ARES nets," she said.
She said she just received a follow-up survey on the emergency communications class that asked if she had used any of the information she learned. "I can now say, 'yes,'" said Hall, who noted that she's now signed up for the Level II class. "I will again highly recommend them to anyone who wants to learn more about emergency communication. I have to say that being a ham and knowing about emergency preparedness did make life easier for me and my family," Hall said.

Here in Rancho Bernardo, Thompson said that RBERS "is ready and able. In the event of any emergency; we can activate equipment without using local power, in the community centers and library. We are holding an emergency drill in mid-October to make sure all is in working order."