I run a business flipping houses and remodeling rental properties. I was talking to the owner of the electrical supply house in our county yesterday and he told me they sold the last 200 amp meter base they had in stock the day before. They were probably one of the last stores in Tennessee that had any in stock. You can't build a house without one.
He also told me our power company has been removing transformers that are feeding barns or workshops. They don't have any spares to fix broken transformers in residential areas so they are stealing them from places that affect the fewest people. They haven't received any new transformers in several months.
The areas affected by the tornados last week are calling utility companies everywhere trying to find transformers and poles to repair the damage but there are very many spares left. He said if that storm had hit our county, he didn't think we would have the parts to get the power turned back on any time soon.
Crazy times ahead.
About 10 years ago I was on a team doing NERC-CIP assessments for some regional power generation stations. I found out that virtually every 'big' substation transformer was made in China, and a majority of pole transformers were, too. Part of it was labor cost, but the pole transformers were excessively expensive to produce in the US because the oil used in place of the 60s/70s era PCBs had all kinds of EPA regulations around it. This is 100% self-inflicted, and I can't rule out this isn't a (whitehat) planned shortage. Destabilizing the power grid is a pretty visible way to show the sheep we need to bring manufacturing back, and show the folly of all this Green "new deal" bullshit.