The days in January were dark days for China. Not only metaphorically but literally. Snowstorms wreaked havoc in the south, snuffing out power in 169 counties nationwide due to the failure of 36,740 electricity transmission lines. This paralyzed traffic and suspended water and gas supplies.

The reason for the chaos is being blamed on the safety standards of power grids in the affected regions, which were reportedly too low to cope with the unexpected disaster. Media reports explained how after days of snow and sleet, a large number of electricity transmission towers collapsed because the thickness of ice buildup had been four or five times more than what they were designed to withstand.

Many people therefore are calling for an overhaul of the current safety standards and, on this basis, an overall upgrading of existing facilities. They take Chongqing, China's largest municipality in its southwestern part, as an example to demonstrate how sound preparations can work. In 2005, after a regional sleet-caused power outage, Chongqing renovated local power grids and raised their storm resistance levels by over 200 percent. This initiative is believed to have played a key role in ensuring Chongqing was the least ravaged region in the January snow disaster.

However, to apply Chongqing's solution nationwide is not an easy job. Financial feasibility is the first and maybe the biggest obstacle. According to industry insiders, if power grids' snow-proof capability were doubled, their construction costs would increase exponentially. The huge upgrading costs would certainly be a heavy burden on power grid operators.

In fact, low safety is only one among many problems facing China's power distributors. In recent years, due to increasing demands for electricity that result from a booming economy, a growing number of new power plants have been put into operation, remarkably increasing the workload of electricity transmission networks. However, power grids' transmission capacity has not kept pace with the upward trend. The lagging behind should be mainly attributed to the fact that, while natural monopoly has prevented private capital from entering the electricity distribution sector, state-owned operators use only their own capital reserves and bank loans to build power grids. It is far from enough.

The gap between China and Western industrialized countries in this field is more evident. In terms of the percentages taken by different sectors in accumulated national investment in the power industry between 2003 and 2007, they were 33 percent for distribution and 67 percent for generation in China, but conversely 60 percent and 40 percent, respectively, in the West.

Regarding this, the urgent establishment of an efficient financing system for power grid construction should not be omitted in the government's precautions in case of future disasters.

In 2003, the outbreak of the SARS epidemic not only severely crippled China but also gave a strong push to the improvement of the country's crisis management in the public health sector. In the same vein, the recent snowstorms can provide important lessons for the government to carefully think and learn.