Severe weather is increasingly causing widespread power outages in Pittsburgh. This organization wants to fund solutions.
Henry L. Hillman Foundation's 'Powered & Prepared Initiative' seeks proposals from nonprofits and municipal organizations
By Lindsay Shachnow, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Nate King got an unexpected call at 5 a.m.
The power was out on a cold February day in 2025 at Family House, a 121-room Shadyside complex that provides housing for patients and their families traveling to Pittsburgh for medical care.
Many patients rely on around-the-clock electricity to power medical devices, such as oxygen machines. Others who use wheelchairs need access to working elevators.
King, Family House’s chief operations and administrative officer, said Duquesne Light assured him that power would be restored quickly. But four hours in, an equipment failure 100 feet underground still had them in the dark.
“It was just trying to go through plans A, B and C,” he told the Post-Gazette this week as he recounted the harrowing hours without power in the 88,000-square-foot facility last year.
“There’s a lot of crucial items that we have to have, and electricity pretty much fuels all of it.”
A lack of power can jeopardize the lives of people that organizations such as Family House serve.
It can also hinder their ability to provide essential services to the community during natural disasters — including when there are widespread outages like Pittsburgh saw in April 2025, when 95 mph winds caused more than half a million residents to lose power, some for weeks on end.
“A lot of organizations don’t think about it until something happens, and then they realize [they] needed to prepare better,” said Alexandra Taylor, program officer at the Downtown-based Henry L. Hillman Foundation. “There’s a real gap.”
The foundation is trying to close that gap.