When the electricity fails, you put on a jacket and get under a blanket and wait patiently for CMP to restore your power. Most of us don't have emergency powerless heating. Even with a supposedly unreliable electricity grid here in Maine, it's still pretty common to only have heating that requires electricity to operate. Even in the north, where it's very rural and way colder, wood stoves are still an interesting thing that only some people have.
It gets cold every year, you just get used to it. It's not hard.
The first winter my ancestors spent in this country, half of them died from lack of food and heat. They quite literally didn't know how to function in a non-temperate climate.
The survivors were too stubborn to die so their descendants are often the same.
It gets cold every year, you just get used to it. It's not hard.