Just to circle back on this for a moment.
@spindle I hope you fared the storm without harm. It was a doozy; more that I expected in our area, for sure.
Tuesday (the day of my post , above) was hurricane wtf's-it's-name - a tropical storm here in NY - and we were just grazed, it went inland and the eye passed about 40 or 50 miles west of here, but we are a coastal community. We only had an inch or two of rain and minor flooding of the 'usual areas' but LOTS of wind. Gusts up to 70mph near here.
Like so many, we lost power. 5 full days, starting Tuesday afternoon, restored Sunday. In our favor was running water (& hot water!), a functional gas range and no need for heat, which would not have worked.
No major heat wave to deal with either.
Also in our favor was the fact that I did charge every vape (8) and every battery (8) in the house ahead of time.
In addition we have a car-starter battery pack that will also provide some A/C and some usb. (It's as big as a car battery.) I couldn't find the mah rating capacity, but that thing charged phones, vapes, batteries a lot.
*I would say it could charge the GO like, 40 times easy.*
During the five days' outage I had opportunity to replenish it once overnight at a friend's office. That thing easily kept two steady vapers going for days, plus an occasional 15 watt led light bulb (100w equivalent). I have also used it multiple times to start cars and fill tires, very handy and portable, and it only cost 80 bucks at Costco about 2 years ago.
Yes, we lost food from the freezer, imported ice could not save that stuff, but the fridge stuff is still fine; ice worked in there, like the olden days.
A 35 yr old transistor radio entertained and informed us. Okay, we had smart phones w/internet, texting, etc, but tried to keep the surfing to a minimum.
I hope to finish my life without purchasing a gas-fired generator, but the worry is that these events will be more frequent going forward. Seems about 1 out of 4 of my neighbors now has one and they encircle us with incessant noise 24/7. It's like mosquitoes in your ear after a while, but here in Amurica, preserving our privilege and maintaining our comfort levels seems to be paramount.
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emphasis added to show the small bit here that is on topic...