MrRed absolutely, some people died because they were on life support and the power went off. All hospitals (and any other vital institutions) should have back up power facilities that cut in automatically. The lighting units in my tower block here in sunny Eccles contain rechargeable batteries, which are constantly trickle charged and take over when the power goes off.
Apparently most electricity in this part of the States is carried in overhead cables, which are easily disrupted, and time consuming to repair. In UK cities underground cables do the job and we are a lot less venerable.
A more distributed power generating and storage system to prevent hole cities from being knocked out by computer glitches, natural events, and evil acts.
I did a few calculations on energy storage using pumped water and quite small installations can store useful amounts of power for use in slack generating times and emergencies.
This distributed system would cut down on transmission losses and allow more small scale Solar, Wind, Geothermal and biomass contributions to power production.
With a sufficiently distributed system it would be almost impossible for large areas to crash and with plenty of redundancy would keep working in times of emergency. It would reduce CO2 emissions, be sustainable, and involve a lot of individuals, families, and communities generating their own electricity, and selling back any surplus to the Grid.
None of this is rocket science but it would take the political will and local involvement to achieve.

TTFN
PP