"The almost entire state (population >1.7 million) lost electricity for at least a day. Some people were without power for up to a week"
I can personally attest that I was without power for about 3 hours. Large parts of the state were back online overnight. Sure there were places where it took a week, but I'm quite sure that even a system that can provide 'only' 3 hours of baseline load would have made a huge difference. (Especially because once you know there is a a problem, you can selectively and in a controlled way start shutting down subsystems, both reducing load and lessening impact over a sudden, unplanned shutdown).
I can personally attest that I was without power for about 3 hours. Large parts of the state were back online overnight. Sure there were places where it took a week, but I'm quite sure that even a system that can provide 'only' 3 hours of baseline load would have made a huge difference. (Especially because once you know there is a a problem, you can selectively and in a controlled way start shutting down subsystems, both reducing load and lessening impact over a sudden, unplanned shutdown).