Yeah, there's a very good documentary, "The Crumbling of America" that talks about how our infrastructure is going to hell and one of the things it specifically mentions is the electrical grid. This turned out to be from a branch either pulling down or shorting out a wire, but the recurring problem that's less inconvenient but still really annoying---in some weather, my phone lines pick up transmissions from a local bible-thumping radio station. o_O