From where over here are you "remembering" it? Although I see area population references in this report, I don't remember being in any extended blackout in 2003 NH (I may not have been all there but I was actually here); I know we're cut off from the rest by New York, geographically, but all of New Englnd is part of the northeast.

You know I didn't mean that as a personal attack, just making use of the (acceptable) wording (see edit).
I was over here in the northeast in 2003 and I can't personally remember it as a comparison to the former blackout which, supposedly, was much more geographically inclusive and lasting. Different backup grids were set up in the years following that first major blackout. Of course, if we set up like some of the midwest where many individual towns have their own power stations.
In my outlook it would have been better if Edison and Westinghouse had merged their methods. It may cost a bit more to set up but, if the main source went down, instant temporary backup could be readily available per location even by battery. Cost isn't the only thing that inhibits perfecting technology. To say nothing of others, we are now introducing advances on electric powered vehicles that weren't presented nearly a century ago (and could have been) because exhaustible fossil-fueled locomotion was already more efficient and got maximum attention.