@chu my partner answered phones for a Florida city after two hurricanes came through back-to-back. The question he heard most often, with variations in nearly every call: "Why is my power out?"

Several grown adults (capable of finding and calling the number for the temporary helpline!) argued with him when he explained what lineworkers and other emergency crews were doing (in life-threatening conditions!) to repair the electricity lines across the city.

These callers believed that the power company was refusing to flip a switch to return electricity to their home. Some tried threatening him, a records keeper, into ensuring someone goes to their imaginary breaker box.

There have been no major public education campaigns on how electricity is distributed since then. That was a long while ago. I suspect that the proportion of adults who understand power outages has decreased, because the general school education about public utilities seems to have become nearly nonexistent since I was a kid.

People do not understand what's happening, and they are not ready for what's coming.