E-Mail Extreme weather driven by climate change is making power outages more commonplace even as the need for electricity-dependent home health equipment grows. In this context, battery storage can help protect medically vulnerable households, according to researchers at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. The article is published in the journal Futures. For the millions reliant on electricity for home medical equipment, even short-term power outages can lead to a potentially life-threatening situation. Society's most vulnerable populations--elders, the ill, and the poor--face the greatest risks. Only a fraction of individuals who rely on medical equipment like oxygen concentrators, nebulizers, ventilators, dialysis, and sleep apnea machines has an alternative source of power to use in the event of an outage. During outages related to the 2019 Camp Fire in Northern California, vulnerable residents reported complications, including one man who awoke when his sleep apnea breathing machine failed in the middle of the night and he couldn't breathe. One woman had to spend the night in her wheelchair because her special mattress required electricity to remain inflated.