Is the only way to fully protect against grid failures to go totally off grid ?

What sort of 'work' do you think an individual property holder can do other that go fully off grid and no longer depend on the grid for electrical energy supply? In a way a form of 'islanding' just like nuclear power stations do when all their nuclear reactors are off and they have to use diesel generators or something else for electricity to run all the control systems for safety of the stations.