I lost heat and power for 5 days during the 1998 ice storm in Montreal and I was one of the lucky ones, it was fun for the first day or so but after the 2nd ice storm hit and the temperature dropped, sh!t got real. I think it was -10 in my bedroom when the lights finally came back, some people went weeks and, in a lot of cases outside the city, months without power.
I'm amazed only a few dozen people died because it was January in Quebec, there were fires everywhere from people using BBQs to heat their homes, the downtown and Old Montreal streets were shut down because the ice would form on the buildings and then slide off in 500lb chunks onto the sidewalks, hundreds if not thousands of car accidents and all the bridges and tunnels were shut down to the South Shore.
They almost had to evacuate the city but the one surviving power plant saved the island.