By Brad Heath / The Detroit News
When the lights blinked out across the Northeast last August, millions of people got an abrupt lesson in just how unprepared they were.
A year later, the situation isn’t much better.
To be sure, some businesses and government agencies were jolted enough by the Aug. 14, 2003, blackout to install new generators and other supplies to keep them going when the power goes dead. But for all those making progress, emergency planners fear many more people remain unready.
Charles Verslype concedes he’s among them. His blackout supplies amount to a few bottles of water he’s stored in his basement and the batteries he bought after the lights went out last year. Still, Verslype of Plymouth Township said he isn’t worried, mostly because last year’s outage passed so quickly.
“I’m pretty calm about it. It wasn’t that bad,” Verslype said. “Generally, everything went pretty smoothly.”
Last year’s outage began at an Akron, Ohio-area utility and cascaded almost instantly across eight states and two Canadian provinces, leaving nearly 50 million people from Boston to Detroit without power.
And while the nation’s power system has since been bandaged, authorities have said repeatedly that another blackout isn’t impossible.
The blackout left drivers without gas and residents without water. Businesses closed and cell phone networks clogged.
The Detroit Water and Sewerage Department has since laid plans to spend $30 million to $50 million on generators for two of its water-pumping plants that didn’t have backup power last year. They should be installed next year.
It’s a lesson businesses are learning, too. Verizon Wireless has sped up plans to install backup generators at nearly all its cellular towers. By the end of the year, they’ll be installed at 60 percent of the company’s more than 600 Michigan towers, spokeswoman Michelle Gilbert said.
There’ll be a generator at Robert Barrick’s Dearborn Heights gas station, too.
Barrick owns four service stations in Michigan, including one in Dearborn Heights, which he is in the process of renovating. After last year’s blackout, he decided the renovation would include a $26,000 generator.
“If you’re an existing station, it’s probably not economically feasible,” he said. “But if you’re doing a rebuild or a new one, it might be. A lot of people are considering it.”
Restaurants are making changes as well, such as storing bottled water, said Michigan Restaurant Association spokeswoman Kristyn Sorensen.
But the blackout’s lessons didn’t resonate with everyone.
Immediately after it ended, Alongi Construction in Livonia was flooded by calls from homeowners seeking generators. “There were a lot of calls, but then interest just faded,” owner Vito Alongi said.
It’s impossible to measure precisely how well-prepared homeowners are. But generator sales offer a telling indication: While they’ve generally increased since September 11, sales tend to spike only during a disaster, not after it, Home Depot spokeswoman Chris Gronkiewicz said.
Emergency officials say they’re more concerned that many people haven’t taken even basic steps to prepare for an outage — keeping a supply of water, nonperishable food and batteries, for instance.
“There are so many things people can do, but Americans are so reactionary,” Sterling Heights Emergency Manager Robert Johnson said. “People really don’t respond until something happens.” | 
